30 Israeli Tanks Storm Gaza As Arafat Discusses Israeli Plan With Cabinet
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Palestinians remove their belongings from the wreckage of their home |
GAZA
CITY, August 7 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Some 30 Israeli
tanks and bulldozers rolled into a Gaza town, eye witnesses said, as
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat called an emergency meeting of his
cabinet early Wednesday, August 7, to discuss an Israeli proposal
aimed at winding down 22 months of violence.
The
Israeli tanks and bulldozers moved into the autonomous town of Beit
Lahya in the north of the Gaza Strip early Wednesday, sparking off
exchanges of fire in which a Palestinian policeman was killed,
Palestinian security sources and witnesses said. The policeman,
Mahmoud El-Jahdir, 29, was shot dead when Israeli soldiers opened fire
with automatic weapons, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Another
Palestinian was shot in the head and taken to Shifa hospital where his
condition was said to be serious.
Bulldozers
accompanying the Israeli armored column demolished a house.
Meanwhile,
Ziad Dass, the Tulkarem head of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed
offshoot of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, was killed along with
one of his lieutenants by Israeli forces in that northern West Bank
town Wednesday, Palestinian witnesses said.
Witnesses
said Dass, the successor of slain Al-Aqsa chief Rayed Al-Karmi, was
killed along with another member of the resistance group, Mohammed
Karaka, in a raid on the town by Israeli special forces, backed by an
attack helicopter.
As
Israeli aggression continues, Arafat is set to meet Wednesday with
members of his cabinet to discuss Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin
Ben Eliezer’s security plan, reported AFP. The meeting will be
followed by talks between Israeli and Palestinian security officials,
it added.
Arafat
aide Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP the Palestinians would use the
occasion to give their response to Israel’s offer of a troop
pullback in the Gaza Strip in return for a Palestinian crackdown on
militant groups.
Palestinian
factions on Tuesday, August 6, lashed out at the Israeli proposal as
the Palestinian leadership mulled the offer floated in the
highest-level security meeting in months late Monday, August 5,
between Ben Eliezer and newly appointed Palestinian interior minister
Abdel Razaq Al-Yahya.
A
senior Palestinian official told AFP that a Palestinian delegation
would head to Washington Wednesday morning to meet with U.S.
officials.
Even
before the delegation arrived, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
sharply criticized Arafat’s Palestinian Authority, accusing it of
being involved in terrorism and of not being an “effective
interlocutor” for peace with Israel.
Meanwhile,
the Islamic resistance group Hamas, dismissed Ben Eliezer’s proposal
of a phased Israeli troop pullback to their positions before the
intifada erupted in September 2000.
“The
Palestinians reject this plan. Our mission is to resist the
occupation, and such a sedative plan aims to calm criticism by the
international community and gain time,” said a Gaza Hamas leader,
Ismail Abu Shanab.
An
Islamic Jihad leader, Khaled Al-Batsh, also charged the plan was an
attempt to sow seeds of civil war among the Palestinians.
Amid
loud objections from the militants, the Palestinian cabinet considered
the plan in Ramallah, where Arafat has his headquarters, but said
further discussions with the Israelis were needed.
Palestinian
officials said the plan could also apply to Bethlehem in the southern
West Bank if the situation there remained calm.
But
Palestinian information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo doubted the
effectiveness of selective withdrawals. “It’s not logical and not
possible that a withdrawal take place in one location while in another
the killing and destruction is still going on,” he said.
The
Israeli defense ministry said Ben Eliezer presented his idea of
“Gaza First” which would mean “the Palestinian forces would
attack terrorism and this would be followed by Israeli security
measures.”
Israeli
public radio said Ben Eliezer’s plan stipulated that Israel would
withdraw its forces in those places where the Palestinian Authority
took control and prevented attacks on Israeli targets.
The
defense minister first put forward his new security plan for a return
to normal life in the Gaza Strip in talks with Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak on July 15.
He
said he had secured Mubarak’s support for the plan, which could
eventually lead to Gazan laborers being allowed to return to jobs in
Israel.
For
his part, Al-Yahya demanded from Ben-Eliezer that any Israeli
withdrawal from the territories begin with Ramallah - the center of
the PA and location of Yasser Arafat’s headquarters.
Ben-Eliezer,
however, rejected Yahya’s request, telling the PA Minister that
Israel wants the withdrawal to begin with Gaza, where the PA security
apparatus remains largely intact, and to see how the Palestinians
operate. The meeting ended without an agreement and with the sides set
to continue their discussions, according to Israeli newspaper, Ha’aretz.
In
another development, the Palestinian News Agency reported Wednesday
that Nasser Al-Kidwa, the Palestinian representative in the U.N.
presented three identical letters to the Secretary General of the
U.N., to the Head of the General Assembly and to the head of the
Security council, regarding the deteriorating situation in the West
Bank city of Nablus.
He
stressed that the siege and the reoccupation of Nablus is a reason
behind the growing suffering of the city’s residents who are
originally living under serious economic and social conditions.
He
said that the illegal demolition of Palestinian houses in the West
Bank and Gaza have made tens of families homeless overnight and added
that the occupation forces have resorted to illegal expulsion
practices and it is threatening to do that with many Palestinians.
In
his letter Al-Kidwa said that Israel must bear the responsibility of
all the wire crimes and breaches of human rights which have been
committed by its forces against the Palestinians.
Al-Kidwa
added that these aggressions ruin any chance for peace between the two
sides and is the reason behind the growing suffering of the
Palestinians.
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