GAZA
CITY, August 29 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - While Israel
expressed regret for the tank attack on a coastal village in the Gaza
Strip that killed four people, including a 50-year-old mother and her
two sons, Palestinian resistance group Hamas vowed bloody retaliation.
Also, the Palestinian Authority called security talks scheduled for
Thursday, August 29, 2002, with the Israelis.
Security
talks between Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer and
Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razaq al-Yahya have been called
off, Palestinian officials said, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Officials
close to Yahya said the talks were planned for later in the day but
had been cancelled by the Palestinian side after Israeli tank fire
killed four members of a Palestinian family in the Gaza Strip.
The
four were killed when Israeli forces opened fire on what the Israeli
army claimed were suspicious figures moving overnight near a Jewish
settlement built on the southern edge of Gaza City.
All
four were civilians, including a 55-year-old woman, her two sons and a
nephew, picking grapes in their vineyards.
Ben
Eliezer later apologized for the civilian deaths.
A
statement from Ben-Eliezer "expresses regret" at the deaths
of "Palestinian innocents", and that he asked the army to
investigate, reported BBC’s online news service.
Earlier,
the Israeli occupation army claimed it spotted "suspect
individuals" in the area. It later added that it was looking into
the incident, a month after 17 people, including 15 civilians, were
slain in a controversial "targeted killing" against a Hamas
leader.
Meanwhile,
Ismail Haniya, a senior Hamas leader vowed bloody retaliation for the
killing.
"Our
response will be a new escalation in our resistance," he told
AFP.
Another
resistance group, Islamic Jihad, also expressed its ire, and both
groups called on their Palestinian Authority to stop all its contacts
with Israel.
Palestinian
President Yasser Arafat, for his part, charged that the raid was a
move by Israel to "destroy peace efforts by the Quartet and the
Arab initiative in Beirut."
His
adviser Nabil Abu Rudeina also branded the attack a
"massacre," saying it was aimed at sabotaging efforts to
obtain a progressive Israeli military withdrawal from Palestinian
areas that have been reoccupied since the start of the Intifada in
September 2000.
Israeli
tanks stormed the Sheikh Ajleen neighborhood south of Gaza City
shortly after midnight, killing Rueida al-Hajeen, 55, her sons Ashraf,
22, and Nuhad, 17, as well as her nephew, Mohammad, 17, Palestinian
medical sources said.
According
to an AFP reporter on the scene, Palestinian ambulances rushed to the
scene but were barred by the Israeli army from rescuing the injured.
 |
|
The Israeli tank attack was totally unprovoked,
observers
|
While
the shelling that ripped through the neighborhood killed Rueida and
Mohammad on the spot, Ashraf and Nuhad bled to death during the hour
that elapsed before medical services could arrive.
"We
were sleeping in our homes when suddenly, we heard a bomb. Israeli
tanks were invading the area, firing and shelling in all directions,
and then I saw the al-Hajeen's house on fire," said Ismail
Shamallakh, a neighbour whose house was also damaged in the incursion.
"Me
and my brother tried to help bring the injured to shelter, but we had
to run away under Israeli fire," he told AFP.
Five
more of Rueida's sons were also wounded in the attack, medical sources
said. One of them, Mohammad, was said to be in serious condition.
Hours
before the bloodbath south of Gaza City, in a timid move to keep the
fledgling security pact alive, the Israeli army handed over security
positions to Palestinian forces in the Gaza Strip late Wednesday.
"Under
the understanding between Israel and the Palestinians on the Gaza
Strip, Palestinian police went back to a number of posts, to enforce
the law and order and alleviate the pressure on the population,"
military sources said Thursday.
U.S.
envoy David Satterfield arrived in the region Wednesday to discuss the
state of the Palestinian reforms and try to rescue the faltering
security arrangements, aimed at putting an end to the two-year-old
spiral of violence that has left 2,462 people dead.
The
deputy assistant Secretary of State for Near East affairs met with top
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat and was due to hold talks with
Israeli officials on Thursday
