RAMALLAH,
Aug 7 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Palestinian leadership
gave a preliminary nod Wednesday, August 7, to an Israeli security
plan to tackle the 22-month conflict, even as Israeli forces
assassinated three more resistance activists.
The
Palestinian leadership agrees with Israel's security plan for an
Israeli withdrawal from re-occupied land in return for a crackdown on
activists, but still has some issues to thrash out, a Palestinian
minister told Agence France-Presse (AFP) Wednesday.
"The
leadership decided to agree with this plan as it is the first step of
a comprehensive withdrawal from the re-occupied territories and a
return to the borders of 28 September 2000," when the Palestinian
Intifada against Israeli occupation broke out, public works minister
Azzem al-Ahmed said.
Nabil
Shaath, Minister for International Cooperation, said: "Yes, we
agreed in principle" with the plan presented late Monday, August
5, at a meeting between Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer
and Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razaq al-Yahya.
Al-Ahmed
said a Palestinian team would meet with an Israeli delegation to
discuss the plan further.
But
another minister said the Palestinian leadership had little choice but
to approve the plan in principle.
"We
are obliged to accept it, we are in a crisis. Everyone else has
accepted it, Jordan, Israel, the United States."
The
minister, who asked not to be named, said no details of the plan had
been formulated, adding that the Palestinians had asked for it to
start off at Ramallah rather than the Gaza Strip.
He
said that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has kept tanks
stationed outside Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's headquarters
in the re-occupied town, had refused the proposal.
One
Palestinian official said Information Minister Yasser Abd Rabbo,
security advisor Mohammed Dahlan and other officials were set to meet
Israeli representatives later in the day.
Meanwhile,
the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, which has already expressed its
opposition to the plan, denounced it Wednesday as an "attempt to
sow grains of discord among the Palestinians."
"We
tell the enemy: the day you will see an inter-Palestinian conflict
will never come," Hamas leader Ismail Haniya told AFP in Gaza
City.
"As
long as the occupation continues, the resistance will continue and all
cease-fires are rejected," he added.
The
Islamic Jihad Movement (IJM), the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (DFLP) also voiced their rejection of the plan, stressing
that it aimed at nipping resistance in the bud and sowing grains of
discord among Palestinians.
Ben
Eliezer's plan, dubbed "Gaza First," would allow for Israeli
forces to withdraw to positions they occupied before the start of the
Intifada almost two years ago if Palestinian security services took
control and prevented anti-Israeli attacks.
The
project would be given its first try-out in the Gaza Strip, although
Palestinian officials have said it could also go ahead in Bethlehem,
just south of occupied Jerusalem, which has been calm in recent weeks.
Police
officials there said officers had been put on standby Tuesday, August
6, to resume their duties.
Meanwhile
in Nablus, the Israeli occupation army killed five Palestinians
Wednesday as it continued its incursions in the occupied territories
despite talk of an imminent partial withdrawal.
Israeli
forces killed a young Palestinian civilian in the West Bank town of
Tulkarem Wednesday, where they also assassinated two members of
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military offshoot of Arafat’s Fatah
movement, hospital sources said, AFP reported.
The
man was identified as Taher Jesmawi, 18. He was killed as Israeli
special forces, backed by a helicopter, assassinated Ziad Dass, the
Tulkarem head of the resistance group, and one of his lieutenants,
Mohammed Karaka.
Dass
was the successor of Al-Aqsa chief Raed Al-Karmi, also assassinated by
Israeli occupation forces.
Later
Wednesday, an Israeli sniper shot dead a member of the Ezzedin
al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, Palestinian security
sources said.
 |
|
Israeli
forces in Bethlehem nabbed local Al-Aqsa chief Yahya Dahamsa in
a building that was later dynamited by the occupation army |
Hossam
Hamdan, 24, was standing on his roof in the southern Gaza Strip city
of Khan Yunis, when he was shot three times in the heart by a sniper
posted in a nearby illegal settlement.
He
was the son of a senior Hamas political leader in the Gaza Strip, and
his death came quick on the heels of the killing of a Palestinian
policeman during an Israeli incursion further north.
Mahmud
el-Jahdir, 29, died when Israeli soldiers opened fire with automatic
weapons during an incursion with some 15 tanks into Beit Lahia, AFP
reported.
The
Israeli tanks and bulldozers also stormed the autonomous town of Beit
Lahya north of Gaza early Wednesday. Bulldozers accompanying the
Israeli armored column demolished more Palestinian houses.
The
latest killings bring the death toll of 22 months of Palestinian
Intifada and resistance to 2,427, including 1,786 Palestinians and 598
Israelis.
Meanwhile,
an Israeli tank posted near the refugee camp of Balata in the West
Bank city of Nablus fired at a Palestinian man, critically injuring
him, Palestinian medical sources said.
A
13-year-old Palestinian boy also sustained serious head injuries when
Israeli forces opened fire at a checkpoint near the illegal Gush Katif
settlement bloc in the Gaza Strip, medical sources told AFP.
Also
Wednesday, Israeli forces in the southern town of Bethlehem abducted
the local Al-Aqsa chief, Palestinian security officials said.
Israeli
forces nabbed Yahya Dahamsa in a building that was later dynamited by
the occupation army, the sources said.
Tensions
were also running high in Ramallah, as settlers from nearby Psagot
erected a wildcat settlement outpost in response to the July 26
shooting which left three of their residents dead.
Meanwhile,
General Yitzhak Eitan, head of the central command, which includes the
West Bank, announced Wednesday that the army had a contingency plan to
re-establish a military administration in the West Bank, seizing
control from the Palestinian Authority.
But
Haim Ramon, a member of the Labor party who heads the parliamentary
committee on foreign affairs and defense, warned that taking
responsibility for Israel's "de-facto reoccupation of the
Palestinian territories" would cost between 640 million and 850
million dollars.
The
Israeli army continues to occupy seven out of eight major West Bank
for the seventh week. The sole city that has escaped invasion is
Jericho
