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Palestinians Urge Israel to Arrest Jewish Terrorists
JERUSALEM, July 25 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Palestinian Authority (PA) reiterated a demand that Israel hand over 50 Jewish "criminals" who should be arrested for attacks on Arabs and Muslims, news agencies reported on Wednesday.
The terrorists, who are accused of carrying out "barbaric attacks" against the Palestinians, will have their names presented in a meeting between security officials from the two sides, Palestinian intelligence chief for the West Bank Tawfiq Tirawi told the Palestinian daily, Al-Ayyam. The meeting, also being held with CIA officials and scheduled to take place on Wednesday, will attempt to assess the 6-week-old June 13 truce brokered by CIA Director George Tenet.
"The Palestinian National Authority has proof and evidence of the participation of these 50 people in barbaric crimes against the Palestinian people," Tirawi told the paper.
"They will demand Israel take measures against those criminals," he said.
"If Israel does not take measures against them, they will bear the responsibility because they [Palestinians] will not allow those settlers to rampage in the Palestinian lands."
Palestinian general intelligence chief Amin Al-Hindi said Sunday that he planned to present specific information on those suspected of killing three members of a Palestinian family, including a three month old baby boy, near the West Bank town of Al Khalil (Hebron) last week, news agencies reported.
The ceasefire has had little effect on the 10-month waves of violence; more than 50 people have been killed since it was brokered on June 13.
"We will not let settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip kill and terrorize our people," said Tirawi.
One of the settlers named on the list, Haggai Segal, ridiculed it as "chutzpah, a bad joke", according to the New York Post (NYPOST).
Israel has repeatedly drawn up lists of "wanted" Palestinians, but complained that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's police have refused to act on them, said the NYPOST.
Meanwhile, Daniel Kurtzer, the first orthodox Jew to serve as U.S. ambassador, presented his credentials to Israel and said he would be discussing sending CIA agents into the region to enforce the cease-fire.
On the other hand, Israeli security officials Wednesday rejected as a "gimmick" the Palestinian demand that Israel arrest suspected Jewish terrorists, news agencies reported Israeli army radio as saying.
General Security Service (or Shin Bet) chief Avi Dichter said that he would refuse to accept the list, but warned a number of occupation settlement leaders to be more cautious in their daily activities in view of the Palestinian demands for arrest.
Among those on the Palestinian "wanted list" are convicted members of Kach - the banned militant Jewish underground group of the 1980s responsible for several clandestine and deadly anti-Palestinian attacks.
"It would be better for the Palestinians to begin foiling terrorist attacks and stop busying themselves with gimmicks," the radio quoted senior Israeli security officials as saying Wednesday.
Last week, three Palestinians from the same family, including an infant, were shot dead near the West Bank town of Al Khalil (Hebron) by what Israeli authorities called "Jewish terrorists".
This, in turn, gave further support to the Palestinian decision to issue a "wanted list". Tirawi said he believed that Israel would "do nothing to arrest" the wanted Israelis on the Palestinian list.
Hours before the start the joint security meeting on Wednesday, a Palestinian was blown up when a volley of Israeli tank shells slammed into his car in the northern West Bank town of Nablus, witnesses and hospital officials told the Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The dead man was identified as Salah Darwazeh, 36, a member of the Hamas resistance movement, they said.
The Israeli army said it had deliberately targeted him, claiming that he was preparing "a large-scale attack against Israeli citizens in Israeli territory."
Darwazeh's body was blown to pieces when Israeli tanks shelled his car as he was driving near the Beit Ilma refugee camp in Nablus, a town under full Palestinian control, hospital officials said.
The shells came from an Israeli military post on a hill in the outskirts of the town, witnesses said.
"We in Hamas hold Israel fully responsible for the killing and the occupation forces should understand that they cannot murder without a response from our people," a Hamas leader, Jamal Mansour, told AFP in Nablus.
Mansour described Darwazeh as a known political figure who represented Hamas on the coordinating committee of the National and Islamic Forces, a coalition of 13 Palestinian groups - including Hamas, which is involved in welfare work.
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