|
Israel Steps Up Military Operations in West Bank, Gaza
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, Dec. 9 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - In its bid to step up military assaults against Palestinians, dozens of Israeli tanks and armored vehicles, backed by two helicopter gunships, stormed Palestinian-ruled villages in the West Bank, killing four Palestinian policemen and wounding 120 others, news agencies reported.
Israeli occupation forces killed the Palestinian policemen during raids that took place in the neighboring villages of Anabta and Ramin.
Anabta mayor Hamdallah Hamdallah said about 40 Israeli tanks, personnel carriers and jeeps, with helicopters hovering overhead, entered his village before dawn Sunday.
Hamdallah said the Palestinian policemen were shot "in cold blood".
Witnesses said Israeli occupation forces detained 25 Palestinians and took over two floors of the Anabta village council building - one of which was used by police and the other by Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat's personal security organization, Force 17.
In another incident later Sunday, a Palestinian taxi driver was reportedly shot dead by heavy machinegun fire from an Israeli tank on the edge of the northern West Bank town of Jenin.
Palestinian medical sources and witnesses said Marwan Wanas, 36, was hit in the chest and died instantly as he was driving near the southern entrance to Jenin, which is under tight Israeli military blockade, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
In the Gaza Strip, a senior member of the joint security liaison committee with Israel, Khalid Abu al-Ula, said several Israeli tanks had entered farmland east of the city of Rafah and blown up two police posts.
The Palestinian Authority has appealed to the United States to speak out against the current wave of Israeli attacks.
"We urge President [George W.] Bush, for the sake of peace, to say to [rightwing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon 'You don't have the green light. There is no military solution for this'," said senior Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erakat.
But the Palestinians' call may go unheeded, said BBC's online news service, as the U.S. has aligned itself with the Israeli position that it has "the right to defend itself," while Arafat must do more to round up resistance activists.
Shortly after the Israeli incursions into the West Bank, a Palestinian bomber detonated explosives at a crowded hitchhiking point in the port city of Haifa in northern Israel, injuring at least 10 people.
Israeli occupation police believe the latest bombing did not cause as much damage because the bomber set off his explosives prematurely, after arousing the suspicion of officers who began to surround him.
Police said the bomber was left badly wounded after the blast. When they saw he was still moving and feared he might detonate more explosives, they shot him dead.
Speaking soon afterwards, Sharon said Israel would further step up military operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, following the new bombing in Haifa.
"Our operations are yielding impressive results, but we have not finished our action," Sharon told Israeli public radio, "and because of what is happening we might have to step up our activities."
Sharon was speaking during a weekly cabinet meeting that was held at the West Bank headquarters of the Israeli armed forces, near the Jewish settlement of Beit El and the Palestinian town of Ramallah.
Meanwhile, Islamic countries to holding meeting in Doha Monday, are expected to voice sympathy for the Palestinian Authority in the face of continued Israeli aggression, diplomats said Sunday, AFP reported.
The meeting, called by Qatar, current chair of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), is being held at the request of Arafat to discuss "ways of halting Israel's offensive against the Palestinian infrastructure."
Faced with Israel's unprecedented blitz against the Authority and Palestinian infrastructure, Arafat "hopes to limit the damage by securing the backing of the 56 other OIC members for the dispatch of an international force" to the Palestinian territories, a Doha-based diplomat from one of the OIC member states told AFP.
However, he remarked, the deployment of such a force has so far been ruled out by Israel and Washington, whose support for the Israeli occupational force has enraged Arab public opinion "frustrated by the United States' tolerance of Israeli aggression and the ferocity of its campaign in Afghanistan, but also by the Arab and Islamic regimes' inaction."
Arab and Muslim countries, meeting at heads of state or ministerial level, have repeatedly expressed verbal support for, and extended financial aid to the, Palestinians since the recent Intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation erupted in September 2000.
Arafat might address the Doha gathering if Israel allows him to leave the Palestinian territories.
Israel, which bombed Arafat's Gaza heliport and knocked out three helicopters, says it might prevent the Palestinian leader from leaving, claiming Saturday it has the "right" to stop Arafat from traveling outside the Palestinian territories.
"Any request to travel by Arafat will be examined and we reserve ourselves the right to reject it or accept it, depending on the situation on the ground," the official said on the condition of anonymity.
Qatar's emir has asked Bush to urge Israel to allow Arafat to travel to Doha for the meeting, Palestinian International Cooperation minister Nabil Shaath said Sunday in Cairo.
|
