|
Israel Kills Five Palestinian’s, Abducts 145
 |
| One of the five who were found dead in a bank building |
RAMALLAH, West Bank, March 30 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The bodies of five Palestinians who had been shot dead were found Saturday in a bank building in the West Bank town of Ramallah, occupied by Israeli forces, eyewitnesses and paramedics said, news agencies reported.
Wayel Kadan, the head of the Red Crescent ambulance service, said the men had been found shot in the head inside the Cairo-Amman Bank and an Israeli army spokesman said he was looking into the killings, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Also near the besieged town of Ramallah, the head of Palestinian security for the West Bank, Jibril Rajoub, has been surrounded with several militants by Israeli occupation tanks inside a headquarters, a Palestinian security official said Saturday.
More than 10 tanks surrounded the building in the village of Beituniya, located just to the southwest, and have trapped the security chief and several members of the Palestinian Resistance Group Hamas who were arrested but freed during Israel's massive invasion of the area.
The Israeli army said it had abducted 145 Palestinians in the West Bank town of Ramallah since it piled into the city at pre-dawn Friday.
"We have arrested 145 Palestinian during the operations we carried out in Ramallah and they are currently being questioned by the security services," said an Israeli army spokesman.
An Israel border guard died of his wounds Saturday after a clash with Palestinian gunmen near the Arab village of Baka al-Gharbieh in Israeli territory, public radio reported.
The guard was seriously injured and later died in the hospital after the two Palestinian gunmen were killed during the clashes.
One Palestinian died when a bomb exploded in his car, after his companion died first in a gun battle with border guards on Israel's 'Green Line' or frontier with the West Bank.
The clash took place just a few miles away from the city of Tulkarem, which lies on the edge of the northern West Bank.
Police sources said the incident was sparked by an infiltration attempt by "terrorists" planning to carry out an attack inside Israel.
Meanwhile, Turkey urged Israel on Saturday to release four Turkish reporters that Israeli security forces have been holding in a press center in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
"The detention of four Turkish journalists by Israeli authorities is unacceptable with respect to freedom of press," Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said in a written statement, adding that efforts were under way to secure their release.
One of the reporters, Mete Cubukcu, told Anatolia news agency by telephone that Israeli soldiers stormed their room in a Palestinian media center in Ramallah, searched them and then took their passports, keeping them from leaving the building along with three Palestinian reporters.
Israeli forces fired at the center and then took hold of it on Friday night after reportedly shots were fired at them from inside the building, Cubukcu said.
Another foreigner threatened in Ramallah, was French farm union activist Jose Bove, who was close to the besieged office of Yasser Arafat, and reported being "physically threatened" by Israeli forces and expects to be expelled, a spokesman said in Paris Saturday.
Rene Louail, a spokesman for Bove's Farmers' Confederation, an anti-globalization group, said Bove had phoned Paris earlier on Saturday to report the threats in the West Bank town, which he did not elaborate on.
Louail said Bove and other activists who travelled to the Palestinian territories with him to defend the population against Israeli attacks were expecting to be expelled by Israel because they were able to witness what was happening in Ramallah.
"The Israeli soldiers cannot stand Jose and the other activists, as well as the media, being in their hotel, which is barely 300 metres from Arafat's headquarters," the spokesman said.
"They can't stand people being able to witness the smashing up of the headquarters, and the methods used by the soldiers."
An AFP journalist who tried to contact Bove on his mobile phone late Saturday morning got no reply.
Louail said he "wouldn't be surprised to learn that Jose had been arrested by the Israelis and was already on the way to the airport" to be deported.
The report came as a senior Palestinian official in Jordan said the Israeli army had told foreign military attaches in Tel Aviv to evacuate their nationals from Palestinian territories.
"We know from foreign military attaches in Tel Aviv that the Israeli chief of staff informed them that the operation will lead to the occupation of all the (Palestinian) towns and asked them to evacuate all their nationals," International Palestinian Cooperation Minister Nabil Shaath said in Amman.
Bove was in the territories with a group of around 100 other European activists, and a small number of U.S. nationals.
|
