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The Israeli policy of demolishing homes without any legal grounds continues
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GAZA
CITY, August 23 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Two Palestinians
were killed in a Palestinian resistance attack on an Israeli army post
in the Gaza Strip Friday morning, August 23.
The
Palestinian fighters opened fire on the post near the Kfar Darom Jewish
settlement, lightly wounding an Israeli soldier, military sources said,
according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The
soldiers returned fire, killing one of the Palestinians and finally
shooting the second one after a brief pursuit.
The
source claimed the second Palestinian had “refused to surrender.”
The
latest deaths bring to 2,455 the number of people killed since the
beginning of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000, including 1,810
Palestinians, AFP said.
The
Israeli army demolished Friday the house of a Hamas chief. The army
razed the Tulkarem house of Muhannad Shreim, a leader of the Ezzedine
al-Qassam Brigades, claiming he sent a bomber, also from Tulkarem, into
the Park Hotel in Netanya.
Only
hours earlier, during a late-night meeting of 13 Palestinian factions,
resistance groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad repeated their rejection of a
security plan hammered out between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
At
the meeting, Palestinian interior minister Abdel Razaq al-Yahya laid out
his vision of the plan he has developed with Israeli Defense Minister
Binyamin Ben Eliezer.
The
resistance groups, as well as the armed offshoot of Palestinian
President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction and Damascus-based resistance
groups had already announced their rejection of the plan, hammered out
on Sunday, August 18, as they accuse Israel of doubletalk.
Following
the three-hour meeting, Hamas official Ismail Haniya said his group
“affirms its rejection of the plan, which is aimed at putting an end
to the Intifada, perpetuating the occupation, ensuring the security of
the Zionist entity and dividing Palestinian ranks.”
Islamic
Jihad official Mohammed al-Hindi also repeated his group’s rejection
of the plan.
Under
the plan, Israel should withdraw its forces from lands re-occupied two
months ago following back-to-back “suicide” bombings, with the
Palestinian authority taking over security responsibility and cracking
down on “militants”.
Israeli
forces remobilized in Bethlehem, just south of occupied Jerusalem,
Monday night. However, the Palestinian are skeptical of the Israeli
government plans, as they usually don’t fulfill their obligations
under any pretext.
Israeli
Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer praised Palestinian security
officials Thursday, August 22, as “sincere and serious” in their
desire to prevent attacks on Israel in return for an Israeli pullback
from Palestinian cities, AFP said.
He
spoke as a rare calm prevailed, despite the Israeli claim of arresting
of a Palestinian resistance cell operating inside Israel, using occupied
east Jerusalem as a base.
“I’ve
found my Palestinian interlocutors to be sincere and serious, but the
question is whether they have the capability to stop terrorism,” he
said.
“If
we have attacks every day, it is clear that nothing will work ... but we
should not demand too much from them (the Palestinians) in the immediate
future, so as to leave some room for hope,” he added.
Palestinian
security officials also met late Wednesday, August 21, with their
Israeli counterparts and were due to meet again Friday, Israeli radio
said.
The
Gaza Strip has been chosen as litmus test for the plan because
Palestinian security forces have been less disrupted by Israeli
invasions than the West Bank. But its center, Gaza City, is also an
overcrowded metropolis where the powerful Islamic resistance fighters
have their stronghold.
On
Wednesday, Israel’s security services announced they had smashed one
of Hamas group's most important cells operating inside Israel, using
occupied east Jerusalem as a launch pad for attacks.
While
hailing the success of the arrests, Israelis were shocked that the ring
was operating in their midst, further eroding trust between the
country’s Jewish majority and its large Arab minority, which
constitutes more than a million people.
That
mistrust climbed further when the police said they detained for five
hours an Arab Israeli Greek Orthodox priest for questioning over alleged
links to “terrorist” organizations, including a meeting with Sheikh
Hassan Nasrallah, head of the Lebanese Shiite resistance group
Hezbollah.
Father
Attallah Hannah, a former spokesman for the Greek Orthodox church, is an
Arab Israeli from the northern Nazareth region known for his public
support for the Palestinian resistance as well as his criticism of
Israeli atrocities.
Interior
Minister Eli Yishai said he would hasten to withdraw the residency
permits of the four east Jerusalem Palestinians caught by police.
Meanwhile,
in Paris a team of Palestinian ministers discussed sensitive proposals
for administrative reform of the Palestinian Authority with an
international working group comprising both countries concerned by the
Middle East crisis and donor states, AFP said.
In
New York, a U.N. humanitarian envoy said a political solution was the
only answer to the worsening poverty in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In
Manama, meanwhile, Bahrain’s King Hamad left Manama on Friday for
Morocco where he will make a short visit before traveling on to Syria,
the official BNA news agency reported.
King
Hamad will hold talks with Morocco’s King Mohammad VI and Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad on the “latest Arab and international
developments of mutual concern,” BNA said. 
