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Israel Abducts 30, Expels 9 Palestinian Families from Their Homes
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| Palestinian
policemen inspect the wreckage of Zalloum’s car hit by
Israeli helicopter missiles in Hebron. |
OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, April 23 (News Agencies) - The Israeli army said Tuesday it
had abducted 26 Palestinians in the West Bank overnight on suspicion
of what it termed as "terrorist activities", while an AFP
correspondent said he saw four more picked up.
A
military communiqué said nine were arrested in the village of Hussan,
seven in Surif and five in Qader, all in the Bethlehem area. Five more
were seized at Yatta, south of Hebron, the army said, while an AFP
correspondent saw four arrested during searches at Daharyeh, also near
Hebron.
Meanwhile,
a Palestinian resistance leader and a member of Palestinian President
Yasser Arafat's bodyguard were killed in an Israeli helicopter gunship
attack overnight, Palestinian security sources said Tuesday, April 23.
Marwan
Zalloum, the local leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an offshoot
of Arafat's Fatah group, was killed in the West Bank town of Hebron.
Also killed was Samir Abu Radjeh, 42, a member of Arafat's Force 17
presidential guard, when Israeli helicopters fired a rocket on their
car, the sources said.
Zalloum,
30, the Hebron leader of Al-Aqsa, had been accused by Israel of
mounting a series of retaliatory attacks against (illegal) Israeli
settlers.
The
killings came as Palestinians tried to pick up the threads of their
lives shattered by Israel's deadly three-week military offensive in
the West Bank.
Violence continued elsewhere, with three Palestinians reported killed
by Israeli occupation troops in the West Bank, two of them in a
firefight which also left an Israeli soldier dead, and three more in
the Gaza Strip, one of whom was reportedly trying to enter an illegal
settlement.
Sharon
announced Sunday, April 21, the end of the "first phase" of
Operation Defensive Walls, which saw Israeli troops and tanks reoccupy
large parts of the West Bank in a campaign to "destroy the
infrastructure of terrorism."
The
Israeli army maintains a tight encirclement of West Bank towns, and
buffer zones are being planned to “protect Israel”.
The
occupation army is further still blockading around 200 Palestinians in
Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, where food is said to have run out
after 21 days of siege.
Shooting
erupted there Monday night and a Palestinian inside the church told
AFP by telephone that Israelis tossed a tear-gas grenade into the
compound at the start of the gun battle, which caused no injuries.
Israeli
and Palestinian officials are to meet Tuesday in a bid to end the
three-week standoff at the Church of the Nativity in the biblical town
of Bethlehem, a Palestinian official said.
Palestinian
legislative council member Salah al-Taamari said Yasser Arafat had
given his approval for the meeting in Bethlehem, where about 200
Palestinians have been holed up inside the church along with around 30
monks since Israeli troops invaded the town April 2.
Al-Taamari,
who has been negotiating a settlement of the crisis, said Saturday,
April 20, that those inside the church have run out of food and water.
He accused Israeli soldiers of blocking supplies of food and medical
supplies as well as cutting electricity.
Israeli
authorities have said they favored opening negotiations to end the
standoff, but insisted on the surrender of armed Palestinians in the
church, said to have been built over the site where Jesus Christ was
born.
At
the other hotspot where Israel has maintained military presence
despite the withdrawal, 10 foreign pro-Palestinian activists quit
Arafat's headquarters and faced being expelled.
In
Ramallah and adjoining El Bireh, officials said damage in the West
Bank's cultural and political heartland will cost millions of dollars
to repair.
Electricity
and water supplies, sewers, pavements and roads have been hit, garbage
is everywhere, computers were destroyed, dental and medical clinics
wrecked, shops and offices gutted, and schools damaged, they said.
According
to AFP figures, Almost 5,000 Palestinians were arrested, 1,800 of whom
are still behind bars, including 400 men wanted by Israel for alleged
links to retaliatory attacks on Israelis.
More
than 200 Palestinians were killed according to medical and other
sources, but more are feared buried beneath the rubble in the
battle-scarred towns and the Jenin camp.
In
other developments, Israeli police late Monday expelled nine
Palestinian families living in houses in occupied east Jerusalem that
have been claimed by Jewish settlers, Israeli and Palestinian sources
said.
A
court in Jerusalem had several days before authorized the expulsion of
the families who the settlers claim live in houses they have acquired
in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
Police
declared the area a closed zone after dozens of Palestinians and
Israeli peace activists staged protests against the expulsions.
Eye
witnesses said that residents were not allowed to take any of their
belongings and that women and children were left in the open air, the
Palestinian News Agency, WAFA, reported.
Many
houses in the area may also be evacuated soon since the occupation
forces are trying to establish a settlement in the area, said WAFA.
Several
extreme right-wing Jewish religious groups have been buying up land
and property in mainly Arab east Jerusalem, which was occupied by
Israel in the 1967 war and subsequently annexed.
The
fate of Jerusalem was one of the main stumbling blocks that led to the
collapse of a peace summit in Camp David in July 2000, just two months
before the outbreak of the Palestinian Intifada against Israeli
occupation.
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