OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 3 April 2003 — A large Israeli Army force launched a pre-dawn raid on the Tulkarm refugee camp yesterday, detaining up to 2,000 Palestinians in what an army spokeswoman said was a “search and arrest operation” for suspected Palestinian militants.
The force, consisting of paratroopers with extensive tank and helicopter support, roared into the camp before dawn, to be met by gunfire from residents, Palestinians said.
The soldiers imposed a curfew and ordered all males aged between 15 years to 40 years to assemble at a local school for questioning.
An army spokeswoman said the force entered the refugee camp as part of ongoing operations “against the terrorist infrastructure” based on intelligence information received. She did not elaborate.
The raid came three days after an Islamic Jihad member from a village near Tulkarm blew himself up in the nearby Israeli coastal city of Netanya, wounding 49 Israelis.
Elsewhere in the West Bank, an Israeli army elite force arrested Monir Mari’i, Hebron commander of the armed wing of the militant Hamas movement.
Israel accuses Mari’i of masterminding a series of armed attacks against Israeli soldiers and settlers in the Hebron area, the most recent of which, in the settlement of Kiryat Arba, killed a settler and his wife.
Israel has said it will not resume negotiations until Palestinian militancy ceases. Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom has said the Jewish state will give new Palestinian Premier Mahmoud Abbas one to two months to prove he can rein in the Palestinian militant organizations.
Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said yesterday that the Israeli conditions regarding the new premier were “provocative”.
He accused Israel of looking for pretexts to prevent the implementation of the “roadmap” peace plan.
