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Israel Escalates Assassination Policy, Rejects Monitors
WASHINGTON, Aug 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) -
Extreme right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon justified Sunday his troops' policy of assassinations, and ruled out allowing international monitors into the region as occupation forces assassinated
a Palestinian Hamas activist in the city of Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank, news agencies reported.
Amer Al-Hodeiry, 20, was driving his car in Tulkarem when Israeli helicopter rockets attacked the city, reducing his car to a burned-out shell, and injuring four other Palestinians, a Hamas source said.
Hamas blamed Israeli forces for the attack, confirming that Sharon's policy of assassination and physical liquidation of Palestinian resistance activists - what Israel terms "targeted killings" - will only be met with an equally severe Hamas answer, Al-Jeel press reported.
Palestinian minister of information, Yasser Abd Rabbo, emphasized Sunday that Israel's assassination policy is pushing the region towards an all-out bloody confrontation.
"The Israeli assassinations will necessarily trigger a reaction and further widen the scope of confrontation," said Abd Rabbo in a press conference at El-Bireh press center.
"Any reaction to this bloody assassination is the responsibility of Israel alone," added Abd Rabbo. "Israel has clearly opted for a free murder of Palestinians after it failed to impose its will on them."
Abd Rabbo further blamed the U.S. - the main sponsor of Middle East peace - for increased Israeli aggressions against Palestinians.
"The U.S. administration's indecisiveness about implementing the G8 summit recommendations has only spurred more Israeli violence and aggression," Abd Rabbo said, adding that the Palestinian Authority will continue calling for international observers at the
United Nations Security Council regardless of an expected U.S. veto.
Sharon said the murders were a legitimate act of self-defense that would continue unless Palestinian President Yasser Arafat reined in occupation resistance activities.
"They would like to bring us to conduct negotiation under terror, and though we are committed to peace, one thing I can assure you, we are not going to negotiate under threat of terror and fire," he said.
Sharon described the assassination policy as a "defensive counter terrorism measure" designed to avert mass killings.
He said in an interview with Fox News Sunday that he had no doubt "the strategy of the Palestinian authority is a strategy of terror."
Sharon said Israel had provided Arafat with a list of some 100 names of Palestinians he said were currently preparing
resistance operations against the Israeli occupation of Arab land, in place
since 1948.
Israel's assassination policy was widely condemned following Tuesday's rocket attack in the West Bank city of Nablus, which killed six members of the Islamic
resistance group Hamas. The U.S. State Department was unusually outspoken, stating
firm U.S. opposition to the policy, which it described as provocative.
Israel struck again Saturday targeting Palestinian activists in which a member of Force 17, the elite Palestinian guard, was injured.
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