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Jewish Terrorist Cell Operating in West Bank
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, July 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The head of Israel's domestic security agency, Shin Beth, said there was a Jewish terrorist cell operating in the southern occupied West Bank, Israeli public radio announced Tuesday.
Quoted on radio, Avraham Dichter denied the existence of a large "underground Jewish terrorist network", but said there was "one terrorist cell" operating in that region, a French news agency said.
Public radio quoted Dichter as telling the Israeli parliament's foreign affairs commission that there have been at least three attacks on Palestinian targets attributed to a Jewish terrorist group operating out of Khalkhul, north of Hebron - a flashpoint for violence between Palestinians and Jewish settlers.
The Israeli media reported that a group, identifying itself as "Shalhevet-Gilad", had claimed responsibility for a June 14 attack in northeast of Jerusalem, killing one Palestinian and leaving three injured.
The underground group's name combines those of Shalhevet Paz, an Israeli shot dead by a Palestinian gunman in a Jewish settlement neighborhood in Hebron in March, and occupation settler Gilad Zar, who was gunned down in a roadside ambush near Nablus in late May.
In the early 1980s, Israeli security forces dismantled a Jewish terrorist network in the West Bank found responsible for attacks on Palestinian leaders in the Occupied Territories.
Jewish settlers have been calling for the Israeli army to unleash its full military might against Palestinians after nearly 10-months of bloodshed.
Many of them are bridling at hardline Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's self-proclaimed policy of "restraint".
Since the Palestinian uprising broke out in late September, a total of 658 people have been killed, including 513 Palestinians - mostly children and teenagers and 126 Israelis - 13 of which are Israeli-Arabs.
Israeli settlers - 32 of which have been have been killed, including six since the start of the now de-bunked U.S.-brokered ceasefire, are considered the most militant members of Israeli society. They often engage in violent activities against their Palestinian neighbors including acid throwing and shootings.
Israel, with the help of the then colonial powers in the region, came into existence in 1948 in the heart of the Arab world, after it forced 800,000 Palestinians from their land and destroyed over 400 villages. This started what is now called "the Middle East conflict."
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