JERUSALEM, OCT 28: Leah Rabin, the widow of slain former Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin said on Saturday that she considered Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat the only partner for peace and voiced disappointment with Prime Minister Ehud Barak's handling of the West Asia crisis.``If Yasser Arafat is not a partner, then we don't have another partner. Arafat is the unquestioned leader. Every leader has his difficulties with his own people,'' she said in an interview on radio.Meanwhile, in an interview with Egypt's government newspaper Al-Ahram, Arafat appealed to the international community to hurry to protect his people. ``The Palestinian people are awaiting the speedy provision of international protection for them,'' he said.On Wednesday, the Palestinian representative at the United Nations made a formal request for the Security Council to meet to consider sending a UN force to protect Palestinians from Israeli violence.Reports from Hezbol said that Palestinians on Saturday buried the latest victims of a month of fierce street battles with Israeli troops in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that has left the peace process in tatters.In the Gaza Strip, nine stone-throwing demonstrators were shot and wounded in clashes with Israeli troops three of them seriously in various clashes, as vast crowds joined the funeral of one of four Palestinians killed the day before.Masked men fired assault rifles into the air as mourners carried the body of Jaber Ahmad al-Mishal (23) through Gaza City. Many brandished Palestinian flags and those of the militant Hamas group and the Lebanese Shiite guerrilla movement Hezbollah.``Revenge, revenge,'' the crowds chanted. ``We are going to Jerusalem with millions of martyrs.'' Al-Mishal was one of four Palestinians killed on a ``day of rage'' on Friday that also left up to 200 people injured, shattering a brief lull in the violence.The latest deaths brought to 144 the number of people killed mostly Arabs since violent confrontations broke out after Israeli right-wing leader Ariel Sharon's controversial September 28 visit to the al-Aqsa mosque compound in occupied-east Jerusalem, a site sacred to both Jews and Muslims.Venting his frustration Friday as the death toll mounted, US President Bill Clinton, ruled out a resumption of peace talks as long as the killing continued. ``I'm frustrated. I'm just as frustrated as you are, and it's heart-breaking,'' said Clinton. ``I'm very disturbed about today because you actually had two or three good days where there was very little violence.''Earlier this week, the White House said Clinton intended to invite Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to the United States for separate talks. ``But we've got to get the level of violence down before talks can resume,'' Clinton said.
