HEBRON, West Bank, 18 August — Israeli troops launched a security crackdown in Hebron rounding up over 150 Palestinians and injuring several more with stun grenades, witnesses said.
Witnesses said soldiers in the center of the city wounded several people by throwing stun grenades into crowds of shoppers at an open-air market to make them go home.
Doctors at Hebron’s Al-Ahli Hospital said at least five Palestinians were treated for shrapnel injuries and burns caused by the exploding casings of the grenades. Israeli troops reoccupied seven of eight Palestinian-ruled cities in the West Bank, imposing curfews, in June after a spate of attacks in Israel.
In central Gaza’s Al-Birej refugee camp, some 600 Palestinians marched through the streets carrying the bodies of Ashraf Awada, 30, and Alla Abu Al-Said, 27, members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Palestinians say the two men were working when they were shot by the Israeli Army on Thursday. "Death to Israel" and "When will there be revenge for the Al-Aqsa martyrs?," shouted the crowd.
Meanwhile, a senior Islamic Jihad official taking part in the talks told AFP the main Palestinian factions will resume discussions on a common strategy for the pursuit of the 22-month-old intifada on Thursday.
"The high committee of the National and Islamic Forces will meet on Thursday in Gaza City to discuss the Islamic Jihad and Hamas’ comments" on a document for a united leadership, Mohammad Al-Hindi said yesterday.
The 13 major Palestinian groups spent most of last week discussing a so-called united leadership document calling for the creation of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, and an end to attacks inside Israel.
Talks stalled on Thursday night, reportedly over Islamic groups’ insistence on a Palestinian state on the whole of the area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan river, including on the land which has made up the state of Israel since 1948. Jihad and Hamas leaders have also refused to limit their attacks to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israeli government has in recent weeks renewed a policy condemned by rights groups of demolishing the houses of relatives of militants as a way of deterring further strikes.
Troops on Friday destroyed the family homes of two Palestinians they hold responsible for the killings of at least 17 Israelis during the nearly two-year-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.
A top aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said yesterday reports that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was planning to deport Arafat to an Arab country "are part of the psychological war Israel is carrying out against the Palestinians".
Nabil Abu Rudeinah described the plan as "nonsense" saying the Israeli government "is sick and does not know what it exactly wants".
"The Israeli government has practiced all kinds of pressure, terrorism and repression but the Palestinian determination can never be defeated," he told reporters in Ramallah.
Channel Two television reported Friday that Sharon approved a plan earlier this year to deport Arafat after a briefing by then-Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz, but the plan was rejected by the Israeli Cabinet.
