OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 15 November 2002 — The Israeli military is not restricted in its operations in the West Bank, the hard-line Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told troops deployed in the Nablus area of the northern West Bank. “Our operations are not limited in any way. There is no pressure on Israel,” Sharon told public radio during a visit with Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon.
Mofaz said the operation, dubbed “Wheels of Momentum,” is aimed at uprooting “terrorist infrastructure” and will last as long as it takes. Sharon, himself a former general, also stressed Israeli efforts to improve the humanitarian situation of Palestinians “not involved in terror”.
The Israeli Army killed a Palestinian teenager yesterday in the northern West Bank city of Nablus it had invaded a day earlier, stepping up its military response to the killing of five Israelis in a kibbutz, Palestinian sources said. The troops also arrested scores of Palestinian activists in the town. Israeli troops also forced the surrender in the northern West Bank of the “mastermind” of the shooting, a military spokesman said, while tanks staged incursions near the Gaza City home of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin.
Jalal Aweja, 17, was killed when tanks opened fire on stone-throwers, Palestinian medical sources said. Some 150 armored vehicles rolled into Nablus on Wednesday. That was in apparent preparation for an operation similar to a methodical two-week sweep of Jenin that ended Saturday in the killing of an Islamic Jihad chief.
Near the West Bank town of Tulkarm, soldiers surrounded a house and arrested two activists, the army said. “(The Israelis) are escalating every day, every hour,” Palestinian President Arafat told reporters outside his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah. He said “fanatic groups” were now in power in Israel.
The United States has demanded Israel keep a low profile while Washington prepares its military offensive against Iraq. But Sharon, who is campaigning for re-election, told troops in the area yesterday that the army’s operations were in no way restricted. “There is no pressure on Israel,” Sharon said.
In the nearby village of Shuweikeh, Muhammad Naifeh, the alleged mastermind of the kibbutz attack and a local leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, gave himself up after the house where he was hiding was surrounded. Soldiers urged him through loudspeakers to surrender, the spokesman said, adding that Naifeh was arrested with an unidentified fellow militant. Naifeh’s own house was dynamited by the army on Tuesday morning.
Although the army said it will opt for fewer raids, some 20 tanks also invaded Gaza City early yesterday and opened fire, wounding at least three Palestinian policemen, Palestinian security sources said. The raid took place just 200 meters from Yassin’s house, but there was no indication it was particularly aimed at intimidating the Hamas leader, who lives in the heart of Gaza City.
The West Bank group blamed by Israel for a kibbutz attack said yesterday that it would halt such attacks if Israeli troops withdrew from Palestinian cities. “On behalf of the leadership of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, we announce that all attacks in Israel will be halted once the Israeli troops withdraw from our areas,” the group affiliated with Arafat’s Fatah faction said.
Israeli officials were quick to reject the offer, saying Israeli troops were sent into Palestinian cities only because of the attacks launched by Palestinian militants. The Al-Aqsa did not speak for other groups, such as the Hamas or the Islamic Jihad, which have also been responsible for the deaths of scores of Israelis in the two-year Palestinian uprising for independence.
While Israel kept up the pressure, Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman held talks in Ramallah with Arafat to discuss meetings held in Cairo this week between Fatah and the militant Hamas group. Hamas on Wednesday rejected a Fatah call to halt suicide bombings against Israelis in a two-year-old Palestinian uprising for statehood.
As Israel continued its military operations, US envoy David Satterfield left the Palestinian territories to discuss the new road map” for peace in the region with officials of the Middle East diplomatic “quartet” in Amman. After his meetings with Palestinian officials Wednesday in Jericho, the State Department envoy was upbeat, and top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said he hoped a final draft of the plan would be ready before Christmas.
In an interview with Israel’s Channel Two television Wednesday, Sharon said a Palestinian state was a “fait accompli” and that he was ready to reach an agreement with the Palestinians. As the race heats up with his hard-line rival, Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for the Likud leadership, Sharon has, however, fashioned himself into the government’s leading moderate. Only two weeks remain until primaries that will decide who leads the right-wing party to the Jan. 28 elections.
An opinion poll published yesterday predicts that Likud will dominate the next Parliament, doubling its number of seats from 19 to 38, while Labour Party’s presence will plunge from 25 to 19, its lowest level ever. In another survey, dovish Haifa Mayor Amram Mitzna emerged as Labour’s likely premiership contender. He leads his main rival, party leader and former Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer, by more than 20 percentage points in voter intention, less than a week before that party’s primaries. But all recent opinion polls show that, regardless of who wins the two parties’ primaries, Israel’s future prime minister will come from Likud ranks.
US officials in Washington said they were resigned to slow progress in Middle East talks at least until Israel’s general election on Jan. 28. But the US would continue to work on the “road map” at the center of mediation between Israelis and Palestinians, the officials said. (The Independent)
