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Two Israeli Security Agents Wounded In A Bomb Blast
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| Was the Shin Beth attacker working for Israel? |
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, Jan. 30 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – A Palestinian resistance activist blew himself up near a van carrying two members of the Israeli security services Wednesday, after hawkish Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, approved measures to fortify Jerusalem, news agencies reported Wednesday, January 30.
The Israeli security agents, whom Israeli public radio says are members of the internal Shin Beth security service, were rushed to hospital in nearby Kfar Saba with serious injuries. The blast set alight the two men's Volkswagen van under a bridge between the Israeli Arab villages of Taibe and Tira, in the Kfar Saba area, about 100 meters from a crossing into the West Bank, reported BBC's online news service.
Israeli public radio reported that the Palestinian may have been an informer for Israel's Shin Beth who had been "turned" by the Palestinian police, reported AFP.
Israeli radio quoted Palestinian sources as saying the attack between Taibe and Tira had been a "very prestigious, very high-quality attack against Israeli security forces." Israel has put its security forces on maximum alert in the wake of renewed suicide bombings (martyrdom operations) in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, especially along the Green Line dividing Israel from the West Bank, which it largely occupies.
Sharon approved a plan Tuesday, January 29, to strengthen Jerusalem's security with a series of new defensive measures. The controversial plan is called "enveloping Jerusalem."
The right-wing premier said the suburbs of occupied east Jerusalem "should be included in Greater Jerusalem" but only at the security level, thus ruling out an annexation.
The plan to "envelop" the battered city would include Jewish settlements outside the capital's jurisdiction as well as the Palestinian districts in areas under Israeli security control but whose civil administration is in the hands of the Palestinians.
The Israeli plan reported to include 11km wall along Armistice Line (separating East and West Jerusalem), roadblocks and security cameras. The plan would change the legal status of some of the Arab neighborhoods situated in the Palestinian Authority's Area B, Egyptian political analyst, Galal El-Din Ezz told IslamOnline.
The city's eastern sector, including the Old City and its Jewish, Islamic and Christian holy sites, was seized by Israel in the 1967 aggression and subsequently annexed in 1980. The Palestinians see Jerusalem as the capital of their future independent state.
Israel claims the whole city as its "eternal, undivided" capital, while East Jerusalem is part of Palestinian lands occupied by Israel in 1967 war. Therefore, such lands (still under Israeli occupation) are subject to UN Security Council Resolution 242, demanding Israel’s withdrawal.
According to Israeli public radio, the plan, which still has to be approved by Israel's 13-member security cabinet, proposes a series of checkpoints and physical barriers along the city's edges to control access.
The proposals to cut off the city's mostly Arab eastern half from the West Bank went under the Israeli Prime Minister's scrutiny Tuesday as Palestinian (resistance) shooting damaged six houses in the Jewish settlement of Gilo on the city's southwest flank.
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