OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, March 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Retaliating for Israel’s massacre Monday of 16 Palestinians and injuring dozens in Ramallah, Palestinian resistance activists carried out a series of operations in the occupied territories Tuesday.
Five Israelis and three Palestinians were killed Tuesday, March 5, in the escalating 17-month-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The day started with an attack on a restaurant in Tel Aviv by a Palestinian resistance activist, who killed three Israelis and wounded up to 20 before being shot dead by the Israeli police, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The Palestinian resistance movement, Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades, took responsibility for the attack, saying that it was in response to Monday's killing of 16 Palestinians, including the wife of a Hamas activist and their three children, killed by the Israeli army tank shell fired on two cars in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
In a call to Reuters, the Al-Aqsa Martryrs' Brigades said the attack came "in retaliation for the massacre of the women and children in Ramallah and the massacres in Jenin," Israel’s Ha’aretz daily reported.
The Palestinian resistance activist who carried out the Tel Aviv operation is Ibrahim Mohammed Hassona, news agencies reported.
Hassona is thought to be an inhabitant of the Jebalya refugee camp outside Gaza City, BBC’s online news service reported.
Soon afterwards, another Palestinian activist blew himself up on a bus in Afula, northern Israel, also killing one Israeli, police said, AFP reported. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the operation.
At about the same time, an Israeli woman settler was shot dead by Palestinians and her husband wounded as they were driving in a car near the West Bank city of Bethlehem, Israeli military sources said.
The latest string of Palestinian martyr operations follow a round of bloodiest Israeli aggressions against the Palestinian people since the start of their Intifada in September 2000. Sixteen Palestinians were killed Monday by Israeli occupation army raids on the occupied Palestinian territories that continued into the night with Israeli air strikes.
The latest deaths bring to 1,365 the number of people killed since the Palestinian Intifada broke out September 28, 2000. The dead included 1,032 Palestinians – mostly children and teenagers – and 310 Israelis.
The killing Monday of 16 Palestinians was an implementation by the Israeli occupation army of the Israeli cabinet decision to turn up the heat on the Palestinians, following attacks at the weekend which killed 22 Israelis.
Far-right Israeli premier Ariel Sharon told reporters Monday "they [the Palestinians] should suffer many losses" and "should be hit very hard."
"Whoever wants to negotiate with them should hit them hard first, so that they understand that they will not get anything,” he added.
