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THE MEDIA LINE DAILY NEWS FOCUS 1. ANTI-PULLOUT PROTESTS – MASS BUT PEACEFUL –CONTINUE… The mass protests against Israel’s impending withdrawal from the Gaza Strip continued through the night on Wednesday. Once again, predictions of imminent violence were proven to be wrong. Demonstrators moved from the assembly point in the Negev community of Ofaqim to the Peduyim junction in the direction of the Gaza Strip, where most spent the night. Although participants numbered in the thousands, police reported making few arrests. Several hundred protestors, however, were stopped and prevented from infiltrating into Gaza. None of the reported incidents was violent in nature. Due to harsh conditions, protestors returned to Ofaqim in the early morning hours on Thursday. Protest organizers and leaders of the anti-pullout movement were conspicuously working the crowd, admonishing demonstrators not to engage security forces with either physical or verbal abuse. All the time, protest leaders and police remained in contact, discussing ways of reducing tension. In a dramatic rebuke to those predicting internecine warfare, residents of the Gaza community of Netzer Hazani, located in the Gush Katif enclave, will hand over their personal weapons to the army on Thursday evening. The move is intended to refute rumors that the evacuees are planning to turn their weapons on Israeli police and soldiers once the pullout begins. 2. PALESTINIAN POLL: MAJORITY WOULD LIKE POLITICAL ALTERNATIVE TO FATAH AND HAMAS… A new poll released by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion shows a majority (57.8%) of Palestinians favoring a political alternative to Fatah or Hamas. Of the options presently available, Fatah outdistanced Hamas by a margin of 37.4% to 26.9%. Next in line was Islamic Jihad with a distant 5.7% and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine with 4.1%. Asked to what degree Palestinians felt that the Palestinian Authority-controlled areas have reached the status of a democracy, the average response was 5.1 out of a possible 10. 3. BBC REPORT: BRITAIN HELPED ISRAEL GO NUCLEAR… The BBC is reporting that Britain secretly sold heavy water to Israel in 1958, thus enabling the Jewish state’s nuclear program. According to the report, Israel purchased twenty tons of it -- the key ingredient in plutonium production – for 1.5 million British pounds. It alleges that the sale was not revealed to members of Harold MacMillan’s government and that it was also kept secret from the United States. The Americans had denied Israel’s request to purchase heavy water because it was not willing to agree to a “peaceful purposes only” clause. The British did not require the caveat. The deal was officially presented as a transaction between Norway and Israel. 4. EGYPTIANS ARRIVE IN GAZA TO TRAIN P.A. FORCES… Thirty Egyptian security officers arrived in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday to begin training a force of 5,000 Palestinians that will be charged with maintaining order as the Israelis evacuate the area. The focus of the new force will be to prevent looting and the commandeering of army bases and residential areas abandoned by the withdrawing Israelis. The actual role of the Egyptians has been vaguely described as “providing assistance and advice.” Israel and Egypt have agreed that 750 Egyptian border guards will patrol the Egyptian side of what is known as the “Philadelphi strip” after the Israeli pullout. By The Media Line Staff on Thursday, August 04, 2005