|
Seven Dead in Bloody Sunday of Mideast Violence
JERUSALEM, Sept 9 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Seven people were killed in a bloody Sunday of Middle East violence which saw a school bus shooting and two bombings, apparently including the first-ever attack by an Israeli Arab.
Dozens of Israelis were also injured, after which, an Israeli missile strike on West Bank cities hit empty offices of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement and a building in Jericho.
In Ramallah, Israelis launched two missiles at a building housing a Palestinian police headquarters and offices of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), Palestinian witnesses said, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
At El Bireh, two more Israeli missiles struck a Fatah office; while in Jericho, a Palestinian security forces base was hit by Israeli occupation troops.
In the Gaza Strip, Israeli occupation soldiers killed a Palestinian near Beit Hanoun in the north of the area, a Palestinian source said.
The DFLP identified the dead man as one of its members, Naseem Ahmad Awdatallah Abu Assi.
Palestinian hospital sources also said a 13-year-old Palestinian boy who died late Saturday had been shot by Israeli occupation troops near Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, but this was denied by the Israeli occupation army.
In other incidents, four Palestinians were wounded when Israeli tanks shelled four houses and a school in Rafah at dawn Sunday, a Palestinian security source said.
Earlier Saturday night, eight Palestinians were wounded, one seriously, in a clash with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank town of Hebron, hospital sources said.
Hebron has seen some of the worst Israeli violence since the beginning of the 11-month Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, against illegal Israeli occupation.
Palestinian officials warned the bloodshed would go on until Israel seeks a political settlement.
Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres are expected to meet in the coming days, although doubt has been growing over the usefulness of their much-anticipated meeting amid the recent surge of killings.
In Nahariya, a bomber blew himself up as passengers were pouring off a train that had just arrived from Tel Aviv at the beginning of the Israeli work week, killing three other people and leaving 36 wounded.
A statement from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office said an ID card found at the blast site identified the bomber as an Israeli Arab, 48-year-old Mohammed Salah Hbeishi from Abu Sanan village.
It said police had been looking for Hbeishi for days after getting information that he had joined a unit of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, which claimed responsibility for the attack.
Israel had asked Arafat's Palestinian Authority to arrest him, it said.
"This cowardly, terrorist act is the result of the campaign of incitement and hatred launched by the Palestinian Authority," government spokesman Avi Pazner told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
But Arafat's presidential secretary Tayeb Abdelrahim said the Palestinian Authority was "astonished" that it was being blamed for the bombing.
Earlier in the day, Palestinians ambushed an Israeli school bus near the Jordan valley city of Jericho, killing the driver and a teacher, and wounding three other teachers.
Dozens of rounds were reported to have been fired. The Islamic Jihad in Palestine, in a statement issued in Beirut, claimed responsibility.
The attacks continued when a second bomber blew himself up at Beit Lid, a busy road junction east of the coastal resort of Netanya. Three people were wounded in the explosion, which left four cars and a bus in flames.
"When teachers are being killed on the way to school, it is not something we can tolerate," government spokesman Arye Mekel told AFP.
The attacks led two hardline ministers to call on Peres not to go ahead with the Arafat meeting, the
Haaretz newspaper reported.
But a spokesman for the European Union's envoy to the Middle East, Miguel Angel Moratinos, said there was "no doubt" about the talks between Arafat and Peres, who shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for an interim peace accord.
Recent meetings have failed to stem the violence, however, and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said after talks with his colleagues of the 22-member Arab League in Cairo that there was no end in sight.
"Resistance to the occupation will continue as long as the occupation continues and the peace process is halted," he told reporters, adding that Israel had to begin a "political process" with the Palestinians immediately.
Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian minister for planning and international cooperation, said on the sidelines of the meeting: "This explosive situation has a single reason: the continuation of the occupation."
He said the Palestinians would stick to conditions for a meeting between Arafat and Peres, saying no date would be set unless Peres is sent with a "real mandate" from hardliner Sharon.
Qatari Foreign Minister Hamed bin Jassem said the U.N. Security Council's failure to back calls to send international observers to the territories sent the "wrong signal to Israel" to pursue its attacks.
U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said on television that Washington had gotten new assurances that the Palestinians were trying to stop the violence.
"We believe they can do more, and that they really do need to do more," she said, adding that U.S. President George W. Bush had no immediate plans to meet Arafat at the United Nations later this month.
An Israeli police spokesman meanwhile said the Palestinian minister in charge of Jerusalem, Zyad Abu Zyad, was detained for several hours for "illegally" entering east Jerusalem.
It was the first time Israel had arrested a Palestinian minister since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, though last month it seized the unofficial Palestinian headquarters in east Jerusalem after a bombing.
In other violence, Israeli occupation troops fired on three Palestinians approaching a border fence in the Gaza Strip, killing one, the Israeli occupation army said.
A second Palestinian was also wounded, a Palestinian hospital official said.
The attacks occurred as the Israeli government was set to discuss a plan to build fences along the West Bank border and declare areas east of it "closed military zones", in order to prevent Palestinians from crossing into the Occupied Territories.
Palestinian cabinet minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said the Israeli plan would make life intolerable for Palestinians living and working in the closed zones.
|
