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Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Avenge Leader's Assassination
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| Karmi's assassination triggered revenge |
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, West Bank, Jan. 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies)- Hours after the assassination of Raed Al-Karmi, leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Tulkarem, the Brigade retaliated by opening fire on an Israeli outpost near the Jewish settlement of Shavei Shomron outside Tulkarm, killing one soldier and injuring another.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades -- an offshoot of Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat's Fateh faction -- vowed in a statement earlier Monday, January 14, to retaliate for the assassination Raed Al-Karmi,
“With your assassination of Raed al-Karmi, you (Israel) have opened hell on yourselves. You will be burned by its fire,” the statement said.
In the statement carried by news agencies, the brigades said: “We will not stand with our hands behind our backs while Israel continued to occupy Palestinian land and humiliate and kill [the Palestinian] people and their fighters.”
Following Al-Karmi's assassination, the Brigades considered the ceasefire called by President Arafat following the attacks in Jerusalem as being “cancelled”.
“The hoax of the so-called ceasefire is cancelled, cancelled, cancelled,” the statement read.
Al-Karmi was killed in a blast in the West Bank town of Tulkarem, Palestinian security officials said, blaming Israel, news agencies reported.
Hospital sources in Tulkarem confirmed the death of Raed Al Karmi, 30, the leader of the town's branch of the Al Aqsa Brigades.
Palestinian officials said he was killed on his way to work on foot in the east of the town. Israeli security sources, quoted by army radio, claimed he was in a vehicle.
Karmi narrowly escaped being killed September 6, 2001, when Israel launched a rocket attack on his car, killing two Palestinian activists.
Karmi was high in the Israeli list of the most wanted Palestinian resistance activists. Israel has asked the Palestinian Authority to arrest him.
Israel assassinated more than 70 Palestinian resistance activists in the past few months in an assassination policy adopted and approved by the Israeli cabinet.
The last such operation, acknowledged by Israel, took place December 10, 2001, when missile-firing Israeli helicopter gunships targeted a senior Islamic Jihad figure in the West Bank town of Hebron. The activist, Mohammed Sider, escaped, but two Palestinian children were killed in the attack.
Karmi's death brings to 1,133 the number of people killed since the Palestinian Intifada started in September 2000, including 873 Palestinians -- mostly children and teenagers -- and 238 Israelis.
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