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Israel Kills Arafat's Bodyguard
JERUSALEM, Feb 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israeli U.S.-made gunships killed one of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's bodyguards Tuesday for what Israel says were his links to the Lebanese occupation resistance movement Hezbollah, an online Israeli newspaper reported.
"Two Air Force Apache gunships firing between three to four air-to-ground rockets killed Masoud Iyyad, 49," reported the online edition of the right-wing Israeli daily, The Jerusalem Post. The paper said Iyyad was an officer in Arafat's Force 17 Presidential Guard.
Four other passengers in the vehicle were also reportedly injured in the airborne attack near the Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, the newspaper said quoting Palestinian sources.
Caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Barak praised the attack calling it, "another expression of the policy of punishing those carrying out attacks on Israeli civilians and IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] personnel."
The attack apparently signals a reprise in the Israeli army's policy of carrying out pinpoint attacks against Palestinian activists involved in the ongoing protests against Israeli occupation.
Iyyad, Israeli army officers claim, was responsible for two mortar attacks on Israeli settlers on Palestinian land in the last two weeks. The army officers also blame Iyaad for planning operations against Israeli army personnel. Iyyad's son, Nasser, was taken into Israeli army custody two weeks ago.
In further bloodshed in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army shot dead a 14-year-old Palestinian boy as he walked home from school near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim, raising the death toll in the past four and a half months of violence to 402.
Palestinians have accused the Israeli army of assassinating approximately 20 activists the IDF suspects of anti-Israeli attacks during the wave of violence that has rocked the region since late last September.
Iyyad is the 13th Palestinian killed in the series of assassinations carried out by the Israeli army and undercover forces in the last several months.
The Islamic occupation resistance group Hamas described in a statement the assassination as an act of terrorism.
"It was a new, planned terrorist act designed to suppress and stop the Intifada and impose the tyrannical process on our people," said the statement, referring to peace negotiations.
In Israel's supreme court, in documents made available Tuesday, Barak said he considered Israel's policy of assassinating Palestinians suspected of "terrorist activities" justified, as it was based on "international law."
The revelation followed an appeal to the court by the widow of Thabet Thabet, the assassinated Fatah chief in the West Bank town of Tulkarem, killed by the Israeli army on December 31st.
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