|
Israel Says Arafat Authority Becoming "Terrorist Entity" As Palestinian Girls Shot
JERUSALEM, Feb 28 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israel's army chief Shaul Mofaz charged Wednesday that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's authority was becoming a "terrorist entity" and amassing weapons smuggled into the occupied territories, as Palestinian protestors continued clashes with Israeli forces.
"I do not think we will be able to show restraint indefinitely," Mofaz warned in a speech to Jewish activists. "In the face of continuing attacks against our territory, we will be obliged to retaliate."
Mofaz accused top Palestinian security officials of being involved in attacks against Israeli targets, saying Arafat's authority was being converted into a "terrorist entity."
"The terror against us is driven not only by Palestinian opposition elements but also by the deep involvement of official elements," he said. "Most of them have been involved one way or the other in the promotion, development, directing and supporting of the attacks, including senior security officials."
Among the 421 people killed were 346 Palestinians, 61 Israelis, 13 Arab Israelis and a German. They include a number of Palestinian officials Israel has deliberately targeted, claiming they were organizing the Intifada, or uprising.
Shooting attacks against Israelis in the West Bank have risen in the weeks following Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon's stunning election victory on February 6th over outgoing premier Ehud Barak, politically crushed by the uprising and his peace policies.
Palestinian presidential secretary Tayeb Abdel Rahim called Mofaz's allegations "part of an incitement campaign against the Authority and the search for pretexts" to strike the Palestinian Authority.
He noted that Mofaz's remarks came after the secretary general of the Settlers' Council for the Gaza Strip and West Bank, Shlomo Filber, called Monday for Arafat to be "liquidated."
In November, Sharon called for the elimination of Gaza Strip preventive security Chief Mohammed Dahlan, holding him responsible for the bombing of a settler schoolbus that killed two people and maimed several others.
On the ground Wednesday, three Palestinians, including two young girls, and an Israeli man were injured in separate incidents.
Two people were wounded as a gunfight between armed Palestinians and Israeli troops broke out in Rafah on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt after the army destroyed a Palestinian security post, Palestinian security officials said.
Earlier Wednesday, the army fired shells at a village near Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, near the Egyptian border, in response to gunfire, seriously injuring five-year-old Fatima Abu Salah, a Palestinian girl who was shot in the leg outside her school, hospital officials said.
Fifity other Palestinian nursery school children narrowly escape when they came under fire from the direction of Israeli-controlled territory
An army spokeswoman said soldiers returned fire after being shot at but denied using shells.
In the outskirts of east Jerusalem, an eleven-year-old Palestinian girl was lightly injured when Palestinians fired on her father's car as they drove on a road generally used by Israelis near the French Hill settlement neighborhood, police said.
A Palestinian security source said the Israeli "aggression was continuing for no reason. We are looking at a very dangerous situation."
In the meantime, three weeks after his election, Sharon is still trying to form a national unity government that he says is vital to confront the five-month Palestinian uprising.
However, despite securing the backing on Monday of a ravaged Labor party, Sharon's Likud party has run into difficulties with his natural allies on the right wing who are jostling for ministerial spots.
"We need unity, because this country is beaten and torn," Sharon said Tuesday. My goal is to restore security here in this country."
But during a visit by Arafat to Cairo, senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat warned that the planned left-right government would be one of "paralysis and impotence" towards the peace process.
Also in Cairo, Barak and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak discussed "the dangerous consequences of the deteriorating situation in the Arab occupied lands in the absence of new initiatives to save the situation and put the peace process back on track."
In other clashes, an Israeli was injured in the hand and leg when he came under fire from Palestinian gunmen while working on a road in Israel near the West Bank town of Qalqilya, the Israeli army said.
A little known group calling itself the Palestinian Popular Resistance Forces said in a statement that it was responsible, claiming the attack was carried out against a Jewish settler living near Qalqilya.
"This action is part of a reaction to the savage escalation and shelling by rockets and the closure and assassinations carried out by the Zionist government against the masses of our people in their attempts to stop the Intifada and resistance," the statement said.
"It is also a message to the new Zionist generals in the government, both Zionist pigs," it added.
And the head of Arafat's Fatah movement in the West Bank, Marwan Barghouti, vowed he would not give up the Intifada even if Arafat orders a halt.
"If president Arafat orders a halt to the Intifada, I will refuse, we will all refuse," he told the Saudi-backed Asharq al-Awsat daily.
The Fatah leader also said that "the Intifada could increase with Ariel Sharon in power [in Israel] as we intend to beat him on his own turf - that of security."
In the West Bank, some 2,000 Palestinians marched in an angry funeral procession for Naim Daran, 50, who was blown to pieces when he was hit by an Israeli tank shell in his home in the northern part of Ramallah.
"Revenge, revenge! Fatah hawks and Ezzedin al-Qassam bring revenge!" shouted others, calling on Palestinian groups to attack Israelis.
In the nearby Arab village of Rafat, Israeli troops bulldozed a Palestinian home near the site where an Israeli woman was seriously injured in an ambush against a minibus carrying Israeli workers on Tuesday, witnesses said.
Israel has imposed a military curfew on the Rafat area, residents said.
|
