OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, August 25, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) –
Israeli forces have killed five Palestinians, including three
teenagers, a few hours after confirming the confiscation of
Palestinian lands to link a main Jewish settlement to occupied Al-Quds
(East Jerusalem).
A
special unit of the Israeli army, driving a civilian car with a
Palestinian plate, stormed Tulkarem refugee camp overnight, killing
five Palestinians, reported Al-Jazeera news channel.
Palestinian
witnesses told Reuters three of the dead were unarmed teenagers and
two were resistance fighters, one from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades,
the armed wing of the mainstream Fatah movement, and the other from
Islamic Jihad.
The
five were killed after the Israeli forces stormed the camp, surrounded
a house and exchanged fire with Palestinian fighters in the area, they
added.
A
Palestinian security source confirmed that an Israeli special army
unit had entered the refugee camp and killed five Palestinians.
The
Israeli army claimed the dead were militants wanted for carrying out
attacks against Israeli targets.
"All
these men were armed and on the wanted list since the suicide bombing
carried out on July 12 in Netanya (north of Tel Aviv) in which four
Israeli civilians were killed," an Israeli spokesman told Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
The
latest deaths brought to 4,822 the number of people killed since the
start of the Intifada against Israeli occupation in September 2000,
most of them Palestinian.
Counterproductive
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Abbas accused Israel of trying to "renew a cycle of violence" to dodge future peace talks. (Reuters)
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Condemning
the new Israeli violation of the shaky truce, Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas warned it would cast its toll on the peace efforts.
He
further accused Israel of trying to "renew a cycle of
violence" to dodge talks based to create a Palestinian statehood
in the West Bank and Gaza.
"I
call on Palestinians not to respond to provocations by Israel so as
not to give it a pretext to escalate its aggression ... and avoid
implementation of commitments under the roadmap," Abbas said in a
statement.
Palestinian
resistance groups have vowed to punish Israel for the new crime
against the Palestinian people, Reuters said.
"The
enemy should prepare coffins because we will respond quickly and
decisively in the depths of the Zionist entity," Islamic Jihad
said in a statement issued in Gaza City.
Hamas
spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri also said the Israeli raid was a "grave
escalation ... Resistance factions will not stand handcuffed against
this crime".
Last
March, Palestinian resistance groups agreed to observe a "period
of calm" conditional on Israel ending its policy of assassination
targeting resistance activists.
Since
then, the calm has been put to the test several times in view of
continued Israeli violations.
Over
the past three months, many Palestinians were killed and wounded by
Israeli gunfire, drawing retaliatory mortar and rocket attacks from
Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters.
Land
Confiscation
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Israel plans to link Maale Adumim settlements to occupied Al-Quds.
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In
another development, an Israeli spokesman said his government has
issued confiscation orders to seize Palestinian-owned lands in the
West Bank to link a major Jewish settlement to occupied Al-Quds (East
Jerusalem), reported Reuters.
Confiscation
orders were issued last Thursday to seize four Palestinian-owned
tracts of land around Maale Adumim, the largest Jewish settlement in
the occupied West Bank, the spokesman said Wednesday, August 24.
The
move means that the Palestinians would be effectively sealed off from
Al-Quds, which the Palestinians consider the capital of their future
independent state.
The
Israeli cabinet approved on July 10, a revised route of the separation
wall, leaving around a quarter of the Palestinian residents in Al-Quds
cut off from the rest of the holy city.
The
International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nation's highest
legal body, has ruled that the 700-kilometer (435-mile) barrier violated
international law.
It
said those sections of the wall constructed on occupied Palestinian
territories should be torn down and Palestinians must be compensated
for the damages caused.
There
are around 230,000 Palestinians living in Al-Quds, home to Al-Aqsa
Mosque, the third holiest shrine in Islam.
The
status of the holy city has long been one of the thorniest issues of
the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Israel
captured Al-Quds in 1967 and later annexed the holy city in a move not
recognized by the world community or UN resolutions.
"Dangerous"
Palestinian
Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei lashed out at the new Israeli measure,
reported Haaretz Thursday.
"The
picture is very dark and very dangerous," said Qurei.
"With
these actions there will be no room for a viable Palestinian state and
no hope for peace."
The
Palestinians have accused Israel of trying to parlay the Gaza Strip
pullout into a permanent hold on the occupied West Bank, where 240,000
Jewish settlers live among 2.4 million Palestinians.
"This
is consistent with Israel's tendency to expand Jewish settlements in
the West bank to 'make it up' to the settlement movement for the
evacuation of settlements in Gaza," said Palestinian Planning
Minister Ghassan Al-Khatib.
Israel
has made it clear that it intends to link Maale Adumim to other Jewish
population centers about a dozen kilometers (eight miles) away in
occupied Al-Quds.
It
also unveiled last March that it would build 3,500 new houses in Maale
Adumim, drawing immediate rebuke from the US.
