|
Six Killed, Scores Arrested as Israel Escalates Military Assault
HEBRON, West Bank, Dec 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Six Palestinians were killed and up to 40 arrested when the Israeli army launched a new series of deadly pre-dawn raids into West Bank towns Friday as hardline Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government pursued its crackdown on Palestinian activists, news agencies reported.
Palestinian security sources said the six Palestinians, all policemen, were all under the age of 27, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
According to an information alert by the Palestine Monitor, one of the dead Palestinians in Salfit, near Nablus, Rezek Shaban Harzallah, was killed when Israeli troops entered his house and shot him in front of his family, also injuring his wife and two of his brothers.
Around 7 p.m., the Palestine Monitor said, the Israeli army fired five missiles into Ramallah; one of them exploded in a Quaker "Friends Boys School," destroying eight classrooms, according to their report.
Before rolling out of town, Israeli occupation troops demolished three houses, including one that belongs to the local chief of Fatah, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's resistance movement, Palestinian sources added.
A senior aide to beleaguered Arafat denounced the killing of the Palestinians as a "massacre" and warned of a "catastrophe" unless Israel halted its military escalation.
"What happened in Salfit amounts to a new massacre carried out by the Israeli forces under a decision from Sharon," Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP. "This shows their determination to step up the aggression against the Palestinian people, which is aimed at sabotaging all international efforts, particularly U.S. efforts, for peace in the region."
Abu Rudeina said the Palestinian Authority "strongly warns against a catastrophe in the region if the escalation persists."
There were also raids on Ramallah and Jenin, both in the West Bank.
Israel has vowed to take the law into its own hands, accusing Arafat of failing to crackdown on anti-Israeli attackers after an ambush on a Jewish settlers' bus in the West Bank that killed 10 Israelis.
It has also cut all links with Arafat and stepped up air strikes against Palestinian security buildings.
Troops backed by tanks and helicopter cover launched at least five raids overnight, zeroing in mainly on the West Bank, conducting house-to-house arrests and demolishing homes, witnesses said.
The army said five armed Palestinians were killed and four wounded in an exchange of fire in the self-rule town of Salfit early Friday, accusing gunmen of opening fire during an operation involving infantry, tanks, border police and special forces.
Spokesmen said the army raided homes in Salfit and other parts of the West Bank, arresting 40 "suspected terrorists", including a wanted member of the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, and seized some weapons.
Witnesses said the army destroyed a number of houses, including 15 leveled when Israeli troops raided the Palestinian refugee camp of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip late Thursday.
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Hamas spiritual leader, was praying in a Gaza City mosque, but escaped unhurt when two missiles hit the compound Thursday night, Palestinian security sources said.
The Israeli army confirmed Friday the attacks on Gaza and the West Bank, but denied the mosque was hit, claiming it has "no intention of attacking or harming holy places."
The Israeli military escalation followed a wave of attacks on Palestinian targets in the past two days in which Israeli tanks had entered Ramallah and taken up positions close to Arafat's headquarters, while sappers destroyed a nearby television and radio center.
According to the BBC's online news service, the strikes have a clear aim, to destroy Palestinian Authority institutions.
Palestinian security sources also reported that 12 men, mostly linked to Arafat, were arrested in Dura, southwest of Hebron, and in the nearby Hebron neighborhood of Wadi Abu Remman in simultaneous army operations.
Mohammed Issa Amr, a known activist from Fatah and his seven sons, all teenagers, were among those rounded up in Dura, Palestinian security forces said.
They said one of Amr's sons serves in the Palestinian security forces.
Two other Fatah members, Issa al-Darabeh, 27, and Akram al-Nammura, 19, were also arrested in Dura, Palestinian security forces said, while the army said three Fatah activists were taken in.
The army also reported arresting Mahmud Shabanna in Hebron, and identified him as a "Hamas member responsible for shooting attacks in the Hebron area".
Israeli troops also swooped down on Assiya al-Shamaliya, north of the West Bank town of Nablus, where the army said it arrested "13 suspected terrorists" in a huge operation involving 100 men and 20 tanks, according to witnesses.
Adding to the death toll, 19-year-old Palestinian Imad Omrani was shot dead by soldiers after he allegedly opened fire on a military convoy in the central Gaza Strip on Thursday night, medical officials said.
A total of 1,094 people have been killed since the start of the current Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, against Israeli rule in September 2000, including 838 Palestinians and 233 Israelis.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Palestinian Muslim pilgrims took part in the last Friday prayers of the holy month of Ramadan at the mosque compound in the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem and dispersed without incident, despite the violence in the Palestinian territories.
The Israeli government severed ties with the Palestinian leader late Wednesday, calling him "irrelevant". The move came after members of Hamas and a Fatah offshoot, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, ambushed a bus near Nablus Wednesday, killing 10 Jewish settlers.
Sharon took the war of words a step further Friday, pronouncing the end of Arafat in an interview with the German daily
Bild.
"From now on Yasser Arafat is history," Sharon said, warning that Israeli troops could remain in occupation of Palestinian areas for a prolonged period of time. "If, in talks with a new Palestinian leadership, we cannot reach a peaceful solution, the Israeli army will be in the Palestinian towns to ensure law and order," he added.
Negotiations with the Palestinian Authority will not resume "unless a perceptible ceasefire is in place," the hardline right-winger said. Until then, he added, Israeli troops would continue to occupy the Palestinian-ruled territories.
Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said, "Arafat is not finished yet."
"Quite the contrary, it is possible that military action carried out against him would reinforce his position with the Palestinian people, the state of the Middle East and in Europe," he told the Israeli daily newspaper,
Yediot Aharonot.
He also warned against any bid to force Arafat into exile, something being called for by the extreme Jewish right.
"If we chase Arafat out, we will face complications with the Arab world," Peres said. Egypt and Jordan, the only two Arab countries to have signed a peace treaty with Israel, "will break off relations with us."
|
