"This escalation aims to abort the Palestinian and Arab steps which aim to break the siege imposed on our people," Mr. Haniya said.

The state of siege imposed at the same time was, however, extended by 30 days by a vote of the legislative assembly on Feb. 8.

"We are serious about putting together a national unity government to put an end to the siege imposed on us," Mr. Abbas said Sunday.

The city was under siege imposed by Cossaks during the Russian Civil War.

They are now living in a kind of siege imposed by federal and Serbian military and police units in response to huge Albanian nationalist demonstrations in January and February.

On April 5 the government decided not to renew the state of siege imposed in November 1989 [see p. 37037], which was thus suspended on April 11.

Its most important episode was the siege imposed by the Portuguese on the far larger Dutch garrison of Luanda.

Since September, three million Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and Gaza have been living under a siege imposed by the Israeli military occupation.

Almost certainly, the Castro regime in Cuba has lasted a generation longer than it would otherwise have because of the state of siege imposed by Washington.

We are witnessing serious violation of East Timorese sovereignty by a state of siege imposed by Indonesia.