OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 2 August — The Israeli Cabinet decided yesterday to press ahead with its policy of assassinating Palestinian activists, sparking Palestinian warnings that the whole region was headed for a new war.
Defying international condemnation of its bloody attack on the West Bank town of Nablus, which killed six Palestinian activists and two children, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s office said in a statement it would “continue to reserve its basic right to self-defense.” The statement said the government had an obligation to “to protect the lives of its citizens.” Israeli public radio said the Cabinet had resolved to press on with its policy of targeting Palestinian activists. The meeting of the so-called “Kitchen Cabinet” — comprising Sharon, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres — lasted five hours, the radio said, without giving more details. The Nablus strike provoked widespread international criticism, led by Israel’s closest ally the United States, and triggered vows of revenge from Palestinians, 100,000 of whom gathered in Nablus for the funerals.
The Cabinet decision met with swift criticism from the Palestinian leadership, which warned the policy could drag the whole region into a new war. “The United States and the world should move seriously and effectively to pressure the Israeli government to stop its aggression and continuing war against the Palestinian people,” said Nabil Abu Rudeina, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s adviser. “Israel’s insistence on moving ahead with attacks and assassination means that the whole region is heading into violence and explosion,” he told AFP by telephone from Egypt, where Arafat met President Hosni Mubarak.
Speaking to reporters after meeting Arafat, Mubarak repeated his call for the United States and the European Union to intervene in the conflict. He warned that the situation could get more complicated unless these powers stepped in more forcefully.
Mubarak said that Israel’s policy of assassinating Palestinian leaders would not calm the situation, adding that a second and third line of leaders would quickly emerge, raising the conflict to a new level of ferocity and intensity.
Later in Rome, Arafat called for international observers to be sent to the Middle East as soon as possible. Arafat spoke to reporters after meeting Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi on the first day of a visit to Italy. He said he would appeal to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who chaired last month’s Group of Eight summit in Genoa, during a scheduled meeting today “to do everything possible” to enable the deployment of peacekeepers.
In fresh violence, a Palestinian was shot dead yesterday by Israeli forces in the flashpoint West Bank town of Hebron. Muhammad Hashabati, 35, was hit in the chest during an exchange of fire between the Israeli Army and Palestinians in the old part of the city, security officials said.
His death brings the toll of the 10-month Palestinian uprising, or intifada, to 686, including 539 Palestinians and 128 Israelis.
A three-year-old Palestinian boy was shot in the hand during the Hebron shooting, and three other people were injured by flying glass as bullets shattered the windows of the city hospital, medical officials said.
