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Israeli
Troops Occupy Palestinian Town After Killing Four Palestinian Police
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Israeli
occupation soldiers move in to Beit Hanoun
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GAZA
CITY, Feb. 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Israeli occupation forces
took over the entire Palestinian self-rule town of Beit Hanoun in the north of
the Gaza Strip early Wednesday, after killing four Palestinian policemen during
incursions into three Gaza Strip self-rule localities.
Palestinian
security sources said that the occupation army had imposed a curfew, set up
roadblocks on all roads into the town and conducted systematic searches. The
main north-south road through the Gaza Strip had also been cut at Beit Hanoun,
the sources added, AFP reported.
Israeli
occupation troops moved into Beit Hanoun at dawn, killing Palestinian policeman
Amjad Hamad. Another Palestinian was seriously wounded and explosions were
heard, the sources said.
In
Beit Hanoun, tanks surrounded the house of Salah Shehadeh, a Hamas resistance
activist who is reported to figure prominently on the Israeli wanted list.
Israeli occupation troops demolished part of the house in an earlier incursion.
Earlier,
Israeli occupation troops killed three other Palestinian police officers during
incursions into Deir Al-Balah and Beit Lahia in the central Gaza Strip. The
Palestinian sources said the three men killed in Deir Al-Balah belonged to the
Palestinian National Security forces and were killed in their guard post east of
the town. The three men were Shadi al-Hassanat, Khaled Abu Sitta and Abdel Halim
al-Hassanat. Their position was destroyed in the Israeli attack, the sources
said.
Witnesses
said the tanks cordoned off a one square kilometer residential and farmland
section of the town, which was not densely populated, and that army bulldozers
and jeeps followed closely behind the tanks.
"This
reoccupation is part of the escalation in Israeli aggression. There have been no
shootings or attacks in the last several days from Deir el-Balah," a senior
Palestinian security official told AFP.
At
around 1 am (2300 GMT) Israeli occupation troops entered Palestinian territory
and surrounded Beit Lahiya, cutting the road to the nearby Jebalya refugee camp
next to Gaza City, witnesses added.
The
Israelis conducted searches in the towns and prevented international agencies
from sending officials to observe the operation, Palestinian security officials
said. Witnesses said bulldozers were in the convoys, indicating that the
Israelis planned to tear down structures.
Earlier
Tuesday, Hamas said it reserved the right to fire new home-made Qassam-2 rockets
at Israeli cities, in order to counter Israeli air strikes on Palestinian areas
in the West Bank and Gaza. Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a senior Hamas spokesman, said that
while the Qassam-2 missile was a "primitive weapon" that could not be
compared to Israeli warplanes and helicopter gunships, it would achieve a
balance with the "Israeli terror."
Zahar
said the rockets, which are capable of hitting Israeli cities if fired from the
West Bank, could be used against all Israeli targets, including cities in Israel
and settlements in the territories.
Asked
if Hamas would use the rockets against Israeli cities as well as settlements in
the West Bank and Gaza Strip, he said: "Land occupied in 1948 [when the
State of Israel was established] is a colony and land occupied in 1967 is
another colony. No difference."
On
Tuesday, Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon dismissed a so-called peace plan drawn up by Foreign Minister Shimon
Peres, and a top Palestinian official, Ahmed Qorei. According to the BBC’s
online news service, the plan, if implemented, would lead to Palestinian
statehood within a year.
Peres'
plan has three stages - first a ceasefire, then mutual recognition between
Israel and a Palestinian state, and finally an agreement on the borders of the
new state. He said he envisaged negotiations on the terms of Palestinian
statehood to take a year and implementation a further 12 months.
"We
will recognize a Palestinian state, they will recognize the state of
Israel," Peres told Israel Radio. He said that at first, the state would
include territory already under full or partial control of the Palestinian
Authority - about two-thirds of the Gaza Strip and 40% of the West Bank.
The
Labor Party has not yet approved the plan, but Peres says he is confident his
party will back him.
According
to the agreement, Palestinian resistance groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad,
which reject any deal with Israel based on the continuation of occupation, would
be disbanded.
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