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Ben Eliezer Rules Out Pullback, Israel Kills Palestinian, Injures 6
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A Palestinian boy watches an Israeli bulldozer destroy a Palestinian house
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OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, August 25 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israeli
Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer ruled out any imminent pullback
from the southern West Bank city of Hebron Sunday, August 25, breaking
Israel’s commitments under the security plan, under the pretext that
the Israeli military establishment expressed opposition to the move.
"The
army can only pull out of this area once it has received guarantees
that calm will be maintained" by the Palestinian Authority, Ben
Eliezer told army radio.
In
addition to pulling back form their commitments under the security
plan, Israeli officials insist there was no timetable attached to the
understanding with the Palestinians.
"We
will not governed by a stopwatch," a senior security official
told Agence France-Presse (AFP) Saturday.
According
to army radio, Ben Eliezer bowed to pressure from high-ranking
military officers, who had advised against any redeployment in Hebron
until after the end of the Jewish holidays a month from now.
Israeli
media had reported a major split between the defense minister and top
brass on the issue, prompting the army to issue a rare public denial
Saturday.
Meanwhile,
the Israeli occupation army raided the northern West Bank city of
Jenin Sunday morning, injuring three people, including two children,
in the process, Palestinian security sources said.
Ten
suspected Palestinian resistance activists were abducted during
pre-dawn operations across the West Bank, including a leader of the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
According
to Palestinian witnesses, Abdel Halim Dana was abducted at his home in
Al-Khalil (Hebron).
Five
Palestinians were also rounded during an Israeli raid on the town of
Salfit, south of Nablus, an army spokesman said.
Gunfights
blazed across the northern West Bank on Saturday, August 24, as a
Palestinian was shot dead in an exchange of fire in Jenin, while six
Palestinians were wounded, two of them seriously, by Israeli soldiers
during a shootout in Nablus, AFP reported.
A
member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Mohammed Hatem Hout, 26, was
mowed down by bullets fired from soldiers arriving in an armored
vehicle to enforce a nightly curfew, Palestinian medical sources and
witnesses said.
In
another incident, the bullet-riddled body of a woman accused of
collaborating with the Israelis was also found in the West Bank city
of Tulkarem, in a revenge killing claimed by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs
Brigades, an offshoot of Yasser Arafat's Fatah group, for the death of
their own local boss by Israeli special forces nearly three weeks ago.
A
Brigades spokesman told AFP that the woman had been killed "after
she confessed to having delivered information" that helped an
elite group of Israeli soldiers kill their local chief Ziad Dass and
his deputy on August 7.
Earlier
in Nablus, six Palestinians were wounded, two of them seriously, by
Israeli soldiers during a heavy exchange of fire in the Old City,
Palestinian hospital sources and witnesses said.
Israeli
tanks posted near the downtown area then fired a rocket at a house
where the Palestinian gunmen had taken cover, the sources said. Two of
the wounded Palestinians, aged 18 and 23, were badly hurt, hospital
sources said.
Palestinian
witnesses said all the wounded were civilians from the area who were
not involved in the fighting.
Israeli,
meanwhile, broke their commitments under the security deal,
essentially freezing the fledgling security plan.
"The
Israeli army will not move so long as the Palestinians are failing to
impose calm on the ground by starting to fight the terrorist
groups," an Israeli security official told AFP, asking not to be
named.
"As
long as the Palestinian security services fail to extend their writ
over the armed terrorist groups which control the street, we won't be
able to make another pullback," the official said.
His
comments marked a sharp turn from Israel's position just two days ago
when Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer expressed satisfaction with
Palestinian efforts to rein in attacks by militants.
Under
the plan, Palestinian security is expected to clamp down on resistance
fighters in return for a phased Israeli pullback from territories it
reoccupied two months ago.
The
Israeli army later took the unusual step of publicly denying reports
of a dispute between high-ranking officers and Ben Eliezer over a
possible withdrawal from the Palestinian self-rule areas in Hebron,
AFP said.
"All
efforts to create tension (between the army and minister) is a waste
of time and does not correspond with the reality," it said in a
statement.
The
Palestinians had been counting on the Israeli redeployments, which
allegedly began Monday, August 19,
in Bethlehem, to be swiftly extended to the Gaza Strip and
other parts of the West Bank, where aid donors have spoken of a
mounting humanitarian crisis amid the Israeli reoccupation.
After
Israeli commanders dashed Palestinian hopes of a redeployment in the
West Bank city of Hebron, a top aide to Arafat accused them of
breaking their commitments under the security deal.
"The
Israeli side refused to respect the engagements it had undertaken
under the plans dubbed 'Gaza-Bethlehem First' and that should have
resulted in a withdrawal from Hebron," the aide, Nabil Abu
Rudeina, told AFP.
But
the Palestinian efforts have also hit a snag with their own armed
factions.
Interior
minister Abdel Razaq Yahya urged resistance groups Saturday to rethink
"their strategy of resistance," two days after he met with
the National and Islamic Forces, the umbrella grouping of 13 main
Palestinian factions.
In
that meeting, Islamic resistance groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad,
rejected his appeal for them to back the security plan with Israel.
Meanwhile,
Israeli troops swept the West Bank for resistance fighters, detaining
around 50 Palestinian men in the village of Husan, near Bethlehem,
according to witnesses.
The
military also pressed ahead with its controversial policy of
demolishing houses, bulldozing three Palestinian homes near the Jewish
settlement of Kfar Darom in the Gaza Strip near where two Palestinian
were shot dead Friday.
Since
the start of the month, Israel has destroyed some 30 houses in the
Palestinian territories.
Israel
has adopted this policy along with a plan to deport relatives of
resistance fighters. Critics have slammed both tactics as forms of
collective punishment.
Israeli
officials also stepped up their attacks on Arafat's leadership, as
they prepared to welcome a U.S. envoy next week for talks they say
will focus on U.S.-Israeli efforts to sideline the Palestinian leader.
The
head of the U.S. State Department's Middle East desk, David
Satterfield, a former ambassador to Lebanon, will visit several Arab
states as well as Israel to explain why new leadership is required to
press ahead with reform of the Palestinian Authority, the officials
said.
But
the Palestinians swiftly reiterated their rejection of U.S. pressure
to amend their constitution and create a new post of prime minister as
a brake on Arafat's powers.
"We
have told the Americans that it's none of their business," chief
negotiator Saeb Erakat told the London-based daily Al-Hayat
Saturday.
"We
were shocked when during our discussions the Americans spoke of
changing the electoral law," he told the Arabic-language
newspaper.
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