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Jewish Settlers Unleash Dogs to Terrorize Palestinians
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES, June 23 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - In a flagrant violation of an already shaky U.S.-brokered ceasefire, Jewish occupying settlers used ferocious bulldogs in massive attacks on Palestinian citizens in el-Bireh and Ramallah.
Dozens of large, aggressive dogs were unleashed in the past two days by the civilian occupiers of Arab land, who the Jewish state calls "settlers, of 'Jacob Planet' - a settlement built on the Palestinian land of 'Marhaba' southeast el-Bireh - on terror-stricken Palestinian citizens, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Angry occupying settlers holding banners condemning "self restraint" further blocked the main road at Takoua-Zaatara crossroads and threw stones at passing Palestinian cars, Wafa added.
Horrified Assaf Khaled, 10, described his great horror on seeing the violent dogs, and recounted the story of eight-year old boy, identified with only with his first name, Hossam whose right leg was almost devoured by one of the monsters if not for the help of three passersby.
"Jewish settlers do not want us to play or have fun," said the three-year-old Ibraheem Assaf according to Wafa, "They do not even want us to live."
The settlers' new policy has efficiently succeeded in confining many Palestinian citizens to their homes, particularly at night when the lurking danger is at its peak.
Jewish settlers, who have increasingly urged the ultra-rightist premier Ariel Sharon's government to crack down on Palestinians, went on the rampage across the West Bank Friday, stoning Palestinian cars and burning crops and olive trees, news agencies reported.
At the Halhoul intersection near the West Bank city of Hebron, settlers threw rocks at Palestinian cars causing much damage but no injuries, witnesses said.
Friday witnessed yet another blow to the wobbly truce between Israel and the Palestinians with a bomb attack that left dead two Israeli soldiers and a Palestinian bomber in the Gaza Strip.
The Ezzedin al-Qassam brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, claimed responsibility for the attack.
In a statement released in Gaza City, the group said "the martyr Ismail Beshir Moassowabi, 27, from the al-Shati refugee camp," carried out the operation.
Hospital sources meanwhile announced six Palestinians were wounded by Israeli occupation army gunfire during clashes in the West Bank villages of el-Bireh and el-Khader following Friday Muslim prayers.
In another serious development, another Palestinian was shot dead by the Israeli occupation troops, according to the French news wire AFP.
The uncompressing Israeli Sharon had announced Thursday that the Israeli occupation army has a free hand to act, in an apparent warning to the Palestinians over the ongoing resistance activism.
"The army has a free hand to take action against those who harm Israel's natural rights," Sharon told members of his Likud party in talks broadcast on Israeli television.
Meanwhile, Sharon's upcoming trip to Washington has been preceded by a reopened investigation into the former general's accountability for the Sabra and Shatilla Palestinian refugee camp massacres in 1982, an issue revived by a BBC program aired Sunday that looked at the investigation.
Recently, some survivors of the massacres brought war crimes allegations against Sharon; the suits are pending in a Belgian court.
But U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who is expected to arrive in the Middle East Wednesday for talks in Egypt, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories, said Thursday that the allegations would not affect Sharon's treatment on his visit to the United States next week.
Sharon "will be received as the elected prime minister of Israel and that's the capacity in which I speak with him almost every day," Powell said.
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