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Israeli Forces Seize Palestinian Police Stations In Gaza
GAZA CITY, Jan. 9 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israeli occupation forces continued their aggressions against the Palestinians Wednesday, seizing two Palestinian naval police stations in Mawasy, as hard-line Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, said Israel would stick to its current policies of blockade and assassinations.
In Mawasy, an area of the Gaza Strip where Palestinian villages stand next to Israeli settlements, and which is under Israeli security control, Israeli occupation troops expelled around 10 Palestinian police officers from the two naval stations and confiscated a pistol, Palestinian security officials said Wednesday, January 9.
No shots were fired during the seizure of the police posts, whose staff liaises with the Israelis over the movements of Palestinian fishing vessels off the Gaza coast, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The move is a "new Israeli aggression," said Colonel Khaled Abu al-Ula of the Israeli-Palestinian liaison office in southern Gaza.
Meanwhile, the Israeli security cabinet held a regularly scheduled meeting Wednesday, which came after a pre-dawn encounter between two Palestinian resistance activists and an Israeli occupation army patrol.
Four Israeli occupation soldiers and two Palestinians were killed in an exchange of fire inside Palestinian territory occupied by Israelis at the southern edge of the Gaza Strip.
"We do not know of a planned military response, but we are speaking of grave diplomatic consequences," Israeli Army Radio quoted an unnamed official in the Prime Minister's Office as commenting, as the security cabinet deliberations continued behind closed doors.
Later Wednesday, the military wing of the Islamic resistance group Hamas claimed responsibility for the latest “heroic” operation.
“Al-Qassam (Military wing of Hamas) announces its responsibility for the heroic operation at Sufa crossing," said a graffito outside the home of a Hamas member killed in the dawn operation out of the Gaza Strip, just across the border from Rafah.
"It is God's will that we have one and only choice, which is Jihad (holy war) and the struggle" against the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Birgades said in a statement posted on the Hamas website.
Head of the Hamas political bureau, Khaled Mashaal, told Al-Manar channel of Lebanon's Muslim Resistance group Hezbollah that the attack was carried out by the Ezzedine al-Qassam Briagdes.
The two Palestinian martyrs of the operation were Imad Abu Rizak and Mohammad Abu Jamus, said Mashaal, who was in Beirut to take part in a congress on Jerusalem.
Four Israeli soldiers, including an officer, and the two Palestinian activists were killed in the attack on a southern Israeli army post close to the self-rule Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian leadership condemned the attack and vowed to crack down on any violation of the ceasefire ordered by Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat.
"We do not accept under any pretext this violation of our national decision to decree the ceasefire and we will act against any damage to our security," it said in a statement.
"The Palestinian leadership denounces this attack, which provides (Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel) Sharon with a pretext to pursue his aggressions and his policy of sealing" the Palestinian territories, the statement said.
But, Israel still claimed the Palestinian Authority was to blame for the attack.
"The responsibility lies with the Palestinian Authority, which has not done enough to prevent this," BBC’s online news service quoted Israeli government spokesman, Avi Pazner, as saying.
Since Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's December 16th call to halt armed resistance acts on Israeli occupation forces and suicide bombings inside Israel, clashes have dropped dramatically.
However, Israel continued its strangling blockades of the Palestinian occupied territories, as well as its siege of Arafat himself in Ramallah, pushing the Palestinians to retaliate with the operation that augured the possibility of a new flood of blood in the Palestinian Intifada after three weeks of relative calm.
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