GAZA, 19 October 2003 — Israeli forces shot dead four Palestinians yesterday in the Palestinian territories, including a senior member of the Hamas resistance group, a woman bystander and a teenager, medics said. The deaths stoked tension already fuelled by the killing of three American security guards in a bomb attack on a US diplomatic convoy in Gaza on Wednesday and highlighted the persistent violence bogging down US-led peace efforts.
In the southern Gaza Strip, witnesses said troops shot dead Tareq Abu Al-Hussain, 39, a local leader of Hamas’ military wing, in a clash which began at Brazil refugee camp when militants attacked soldiers who entered the camp three days ago.
At an angry funeral attended by thousands, Hamas activists threatened to avenge Hussain’s death with suicide bomb attacks against Israel, witnesses said.
Another Hamas activist was killed in the Gaza shootings in the southern Rafah district, and a woman, 30, was killed by shrapnel from a tank shell after emerging from her house.
In a separate attack yesterday, soldiers shot dead a 16-year-old boy during a confrontation in the West Bank city of Tulkarm. Palestinian witnesses said the troops opened fire on stone-throwers, hitting the boy.
An Israeli military source said the soldiers had opened fire in response to shooting and the hurling of firebombs at them in Tulkarm, and that one of the gunmen was hit.
In Gaza, the source said, soldiers had opened fire on several armed men spotted laying an explosive in the Rafah area where Israeli soldiers have been searching the past week for tunnels used to smuggle weapons in from Egypt.
The source denied any tank rounds were fired in Gaza. Medics said 16 other Palestinians were wounded in that clash.
Thousands of angry Palestinians attended a funeral for the three Palestinians in Rafah yesterday afternoon, where witnesses said militants fired guns into the air and chanted: “Our reaction will make Tel Aviv shudder... All our bodies are ticking bombs.”
Hamas’ military wing also vowed revenge in a statement faxed to Reuters. Israeli soldiers also blew up a home in Rafah yesterday, witnesses said. United Nations personnel have said that more than 110 homes have been wrecked during the Israeli campaign in southern Gaza in the past week.
More than 2,180 Palestinians and some 830 Israelis have been killed in a Palestinian uprising for statehood launched against Israel in September 2000. Hamas has carried out many of the suicide bomb attacks in which Israelis have died.
Israel has blamed the violence on what it says is Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s failure to crack down on militant groups. Palestinians accuse Israel of stoking violence by pursuing a policy of tracking down and killing militants.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon appeared on Friday to rule out expelling Arafat, playing down an Israeli threat that had drawn an international outcry and US misgivings. “Our calculations for years have been that expelling him would not be good for Israel,” Sharon told the Jerusalem Post newspaper when asked about last month’s security cabinet decision in principle to “remove” Arafat.
No group has taken responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on the US convoy in Gaza. A US Federal Bureau of Investigation team and a Palestinian committee are investigating the bombing.
A senior US official said on Friday the US Embassy had suspended travel for its diplomats to Gaza and ordered those already there to leave. The US Consulate in East Jerusalem called on Americans visiting the West Bank to leave, he said.
Israeli commanders say they have been rooting out tunnels used by militants to smuggle in arms from Egypt, a claim hotly disputed by Cairo and by Palestinian officials who say Israel only aims to create a wider buffer zone on its border. Israeli Army radio quoted defense sources Friday as implicating former Palestinian Security Affairs Minister Mohammed Dahlan in the weapons-smuggling.
Sharon also told the Post that he did not rule out fresh military action against Syria, two weeks after Israeli warplanes hit an alleged training camp for Palestinian militants near Damascus. “We will never declare in advance whether or not we will attack. We don’t have to declare such things but the Syrian activity is very serious,” he said.
Echoing Sharon’s words, a top Israeli defense official yesterday threatened Syria with renewed “actions” for its alleged role in supporting terrorist groups, public radio reported. “The magnitude of Syrian support to Damascus-based groups is more significant that we had imagined and has to stop,” said Maj. Gen. Amos Gilad, who head the Defense Ministry’s political department.
