A rchive Date
[ 23-02-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Israel ]
|
[http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWS/israel_jun10-ap.html
Israeli army raids Ramallah
Monday, Jun. 10, 2002
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Israeli tanks and troops charged into Ramallah before sunrise Monday, surrounding the compound of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and arresting 20 suspected rebels in searches throughout the city.
The latest Israeli incursion into Palestinian territory came just hours before Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was to meet U.S. President George W. Bush at the White House. Bush has been strongly supportive of Sharon during the Mideast conflict, raising only occasional and relatively mild objections to Israeli military actions directed at Palestinian rebels.
In another development, Palestinian police on Sunday arrested a senior leader of the Islamic Jihad, which carried out a suicide attack last Wednesday that killed 17 Israelis.
Sheik Abdullah Shami, the Islamic Jihad leader in the Gaza Strip, was arrested in his neighbourhood in Gaza City, group officials said. Arafat's leadership issued orders to arrest Islamic Jihad members after the Wednesday bombing.
In Ramallah, the Israeli raid was aimed at arresting Palestinian suspects, and the soldiers surrounded Arafat's compound to prevent Palestinian gunmen from seeking refuge there, the army said. The military did not attack the compound itself, as it did last Thursday, when it blew up three buildings in retaliation for the Palestinian suicide bombing a day earlier.
Arafat was inside the battered compound Monday and was unharmed, Palestinian officials said.
One Palestinian man was killed and two were wounded in exchanges of fire in the streets of Ramallah, Palestinian doctors said. Two soldiers were also wounded, the army said.
The incursion began around 4 a.m. Monday when tanks, armoured personnel carriers, jeeps and infantry on foot entered Ramallah, which is several kilometres north of Jerusalem.
Soldiers moved among houses around the Amari refugee camp, entering one house as two trucks parked outside. Troops were on the move throughout the city and in suburban areas.
The Israeli army statement said the troops would remain in Ramallah for a "limited time." Also, soldiers detained several suspects in nighttime raids in other parts of the West Bank, the statement added.
In a followup to a massive military incursion in the West Bank that ended a month ago, Israeli troops have been staging almost daily in-and-out raids in Palestinian cities, towns and villages.
In most instances, the troops have gone in for only a few hours to arrest suspects based on intelligence information. But in some cases they have stayed for days, conducting mass roundups of hundreds of Palestinian men and imposing round-the-clock curfews.
The Ramallah incursion came a day after Arafat named a new, smaller cabinet that includes a new minister to oversee the security forces. The move follows strong calls for reform by ordinary Palestinians and western governments.
Also, the Palestinians will hold municipal elections in the fall, followed by presidential and parliamentary elections in January.
Arafat's slimmed down cabinet has been reduced from 31 to 21 ministers. In the most important change, Arafat named Abdel Razak Yehiyeh, 73, as interior minister - a position that puts him in overall charge of the security forces.
Arafat had kept the post for himself for the past eight years, but came under intense pressure from the United States and Israel to revamp the security forces to prevent attacks against .
Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer reacted skeptically to the naming of Yehiyeh, saying it signified Arafat was not serious about reform.
"This man represents the very old generation. So once again we have a commitment to the past and not to the future," Ben-Eliezer said.
Yehiyeh, a former guerrilla commander, has not held any high-profile positions recently, and his selection bypasses more prominent figures.
Dogged by accusations of widespread corruption in his government, Arafat named a new finance minister, Salem Fayad. He has worked in Jerusalem for the International Monetary Fund in recent years, and has called for greater financial accountability in the Palestinian government.
Many Palestinians cite new elections as the most important reform. Since the Palestinian Authority was formed in 1994, elections have been held only once, in 1996.
Meanwhile, in the Gaza Strip, powerful explosion rocked the Jebaliya refugee camp early Monday, destroying one building and damaging nearby homes, witnesses said.
An 18-year-old woman was killed and at least 25 people were injured, including three in critical condition, hospital officials said. Witnesses said the blast came from inside the building, but Palestinian officials would not comment on the cause.
Meanwhile, the Bush-Sharon meeting will be their sixth in a little over a year. In an opinion article in the New York Times, Sharon wrote that Israel was prepared to resume negotiations if Palestinian attacks stop, though he doesn't believe a final settlement could be reached now.
"The only serious option ... is one based on a long-term interim agreement that sets aside for the future issues that cannot be bridged at present," Sharon wrote. The Palestinians reject the idea of an interim accord.
Sharon, citing Israel's security concerns, said Israel would not pull out of all the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which it captured in the 1967 Mideast War, or redivide Jerusalem. "Israel will not return to the vulnerable 1967 armistice lines," he wrote.
The Palestinians want the West Bank and Gaza for their future state, with a capital in east Jerusalem.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
|