NABLUS,
West Bank, July 3 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Hours after
Israeli occupation forces assassinated one of its leading figures in
the West Bank town of Qalqiliya, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades threatened
Thursday, July 3, to disavow the truce declared by the major
Palestinian resistance factions.
Mohammed
Shawer, 31, was killed in a shootout with Israeli occupation soldiers
who stormed the town and attempt to detain him.
One
of his supporters was injured and arrested in the Israeli raid which
was backed by armored vehicles.
An
Israeli military source said Shawer had been hit after be opened fire
on the troops and attempted to flee.
"We
warn the Zionist enemy and tell it that we will not remain silent in
the face of cowardly operations against our people," the group
said in the statement received by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"If
the enemy carries on with its criminal operations, its assassinations
and arrests of our resistance fighters, our response will be very
tough," it stressed.
"We
promise our Palestinian people to pursue the path of martyrdom until
the defeat of the occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state
with Al-Quds (occupied Jerusalem) as its capital," reiterated
Al-Aqsa Brigades.
About
5,000 Palestinians gathered in the streets of Qalqiliya to pay their
last respect to martyr Shawer.
"We
are free from the truce because the Israeli army is continuing its
assassinations and we will carry out our revenge in the next 24
hours," said a hooded fighter of the Brigades over loudspeakers.
Among
other things, the ceasefire is conditioned on cessation of Israeli
assassination of Palestinian resistance activists.
‘Protest’
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Israel reblocked the junction linking the northern Gaza Strip to the south
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Earlier,
three Jewish settlers were wounded when four anti-tank shells were
fired in the Gaza Strip, an Israeli army spokesman said.
The
mortars landed in the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom, in the south of
the Gaza Strip, the spokesman added.
He
said the injured were taken to the Soroka hospital at Beersheba, in
the Negev desert in southern Israel.
Israeli
soldiers and Palestinians exchanged automatic weapons fire around Kfar
Darom following the incident, the spokesman said.
Israel
formally protested to the Palestinians over a violation of the truce,
following the firing of three rockets on Kfar Darom in an attack which
slightly wounded three people.
Israeli
troops stationed near Gush Katif further south then fired on angry
drivers blocked at the al-Matahen checkpoint, Palestinian security
sources said.
Three
of them were wounded, hospital sources in the nearby city of Khan
Yunis said.
On
Wednesday, June 2, two mortar shells were fired against the
neighboring settlement of Gush Katif, but there were no casualties.
"Sabotage"
Palestinian
Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas Thursday condemned the rocket attack at
the Jewish settlement and the killing of a foreign worker in the West
Bank days earlier as "acts of sabotage."
A
Bulgarian construction worker was shot dead on Monday near the West
Bank town of Jenin in an attack claimed by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs
Brigades.
On
Sunday, June 29, Israeli troops pulled out
of some reoccupied areas in the northern Gaza Strip and reopened the
artery linking its north to the south as well as transferred security
responsibilities to the Palestinian services.
The
withdrawal coincided with a truce
announcement by most Palestinian factions, which said their suspension to
anti-Israeli attacks would be void and null if Israeli forces did not
stop assassination of its members.
Palestinian
security sources charged that Israeli troops still posted in and
around the Gaza Strip had violated agreements several times over the
past 24 hours.
They
cited the overnight closure of the main north-south road, two
shootings against farmers in the south and east of Jabalya, as well as
insufficient efforts to let Palestinians through the Rafah crossing
between Gaza and Egypt.
On
June 21, Israel threw its spanner
in peace efforts and killed a high-ranking Hamas official, as the
Palestinian government was almost close to convince Hamas and other
resistance factions of hammering out a truce with Israel to breathe
new life into the dormant peace process.
No
Pullout
On
his part, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz has played down the
prospect that any more cities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will be
handed back to Palestinian control in the near future, it was reported
Thursday.
Mofaz
told a cabinet meeting that "we will have to wait a while"
before a repeat of the handover which took place in the West Bank city
of Bethlehem on Wednesday, the Haaretz newspaper said.
The
move in Bethlehem,
which was handed to Palestinian security control, followed a similar
pullback of Israeli troops from the northern Gaza Strip late Sunday.
Sharon
To Meet Bush
The
latest deterioration of situation came as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon has accepted an invitation to hold talks with U.S. President
George W. Bush at the White House in September, Sharon's office said.
The
meeting in September would be Sharon's first with Bush since the two
met early last month with Abbas at a summit in Jordan, which focused
on efforts to implement the US-backed Middle East roadmap.
