OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 19 June 2003 — Israeli troops destroyed the home of a Palestinian in the West Bank and arrested 14 suspected activists, the military said yesterday.
They blew up the family house of Qussay Salameh, of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, at Jabaa, south of Jenin, in the north of the West Bank, a statement said.
Witnesses said a young Palestinian living next door was injured by the blast.
Arrests were carried out near Hebron, Bethlehem and Nablus, the army added.
Earlier Palestinian security sources said Israeli troops staged a raid into the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah and destroyed two houses.
They said about 15 tanks entered the impoverished town’s refugee camp and Yibna area accompanied by a pair of bulldozers and had opened fire.
There was no immediate word if there were any casualties.
Israel has frequently raided Rafah since the Palestinian uprising erupted in late September 2000.
Under the 1993 accords granting Palestinians’ self rule in the occupied territories, the Israelis retained control over the Rafah crossing from Egypt into the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian opened fire on Israel’s only toll road late Tuesday, killing a young Israeli girl in a passing car and injuring her sister, brother and grandfather, hospital sources said.
Israeli radio said the gunman carried out the attack after using a pneumatic saw to hack his way under a protective wall on Israel’s side of the Green Line separating it from the West Bank.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement issued in Beirut. The Israeli Army mounted a search for the attacker and imposed a curfew on Qalqiliya.
In another incident, a rocket was fired into southern Israel overnight, damaging a house but causing no injuries, a military source said yesterday.
The home-made rocket was fired from the northern Gaza Strip, according to the source.
In the Gaza Strip a hospital source said Hamed Habbush, 45, had died of wounds received when an Israeli helicopter fired missiles at the car of Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Al-Rantissi on June 10.
Rantissi escaped with wounds, but four other people, including Habbush, were killed in the strike that fueled a wave of violence which left more than 50 people dead in a week-long period.
The latest deaths brought to 3,349 the number of people killed since the September 2000 outbreak of the Palestinian uprising.
The internationally-backed peace road map is designed to end the 32 months of bloodshed and pave the way for a Palestinian state alongside Israel by 2005. Tuesday’s shooting came amid so far fruitless efforts to secure an agreement for a cease-fire from Palestinian groups.
However, a report said Israel and the United States had agreed on a six-week curb to military activity against the Palestinians if armed factions reached a cease-fire agreement.
The report further said the move was aimed at buying Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas time to broker a truce with fighters and crack down on them if they violated the cease-fire.
