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Israel
Intensifies Air, Sea and Land War On Palestinians
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| Despite
casualties, Palestinian resistance to oppressive Israeli occupation
continues |
BETHLEHEM,
West Bank, March 7 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Less than 48 hours
after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed to pound the Palestinians into
submission by giving them a "bad beating", Israel intensified its
fierce offensive against the Palestinians, with dozens of tanks entering one
West Bank city and F-16 fighter jets attacking another.
U.S.-made
F-16 fighter jets attacked the headquarters of Palestinian President Yasser
Arafat's Force 17 personal guard in the West Bank town of Bethlehem early
Thursday, Palestinian security sources said.
They
said at least two missiles hit the building, which had already been attacked the
evening before. There was no immediate information on casualties, reported
Agence France-Presse (AFP). Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah had also been hit
late Wednesday as he was meeting European Union envoy Miguel Moratinos, reported
BBC’s online news service. Moratinos' spokesman, Javier Sancho, said: "We
are not now making any comment. We need to gather more information, but we were
there, yes."
Earlier
Thursday, a Palestinian resistance activist was killed by the Israeli army
during an incursion into Sirris in the north of the West Bank. Palestinian
security sources confirmed the killing that brought the overnight death toll to
two Palestinians.
Mohammed
el Anini, 27, was shot during the incursion. He was the second Palestinian
reported killed overnight as the Israeli forces continued to pound Palestinian
positions in the West Bank. Israel claims its latest assaults, criticized by the
U.S. and UN, are to dismantle so-called “terrorist groups”. Israel labels
Palestinian activists resisting its occupation forces as “terrorists”.
Earlier,
a Palestinian was killed and three others injured by a rocket fired from a
helicopter gunship during an Israeli army incursion into the
Palestinian-controlled territory of Tulkarem in the north-west of the West Bank,
Palestinian security sources said.
The
sources said Yusef Chahadeh, 30, was killed in the refugee camp of Nur el Chams.
The same rocket injured the three other Palestinians, including one seriously.
Palestinian
security sources earlier said that around 50 tanks and armored vehicles, backed
by helicopter gun ships, had entered the town, with some of the units
surrounding the refugee camp.
Palestinians,
crammed into the 28-mile long coastal region, under choking Israeli blockade,
have been consistently bombed and raided since Sharon took office exactly one
year ago but the latest assaults were among the worst.
Israeli
commentators say Sharon has been issuing some of his most aggressive statements
in recent days. On Monday, he told a parliamentary committee: "We have to
deal [the Palestinians] very painful blows, continuously, until they understand
that they won't achieve anything with terror."
The
Palestinian side, on the other hand, holds a different opinion. It has
repeatedly called on the international community to provide protection for
“people under occupation”, and insists military might will not solve the
problem.
Saeb
Erakat, senior Palestinian spokesman, said the decisions of Sharon's government
"are translated now into assassinations and to bombardments and to
shillings and to F-16s and to missiles" and said the differences between
the sides would never be solved militarily.
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