TULKARM/CAIRO, 11 March 2005 — Israeli forces, carrying out a West Bank raid yesterday despite a cease-fire, killed an Islamic Jihad member with alleged links to a bombing in Tel Aviv last month.
“Just as calm is demanded of us, we also ask that Israel not do things like this,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in Gaza. One of his Cabinet ministers described the killing as an assassination and said it could trigger more violence.
In an eruption of internal tensions in the West Bank city of Ramallah, gunmen from Abbas’ Fatah group, firing in the air and shouting they were being ignored by its leaders, burst into a faction meeting on reform and drove participants out.
No one was hurt in the latest challenge to Abbas and his pledge to restore law and order to the Palestinian territories. Abbas has said he expects to win a full cease-fire from main groups at talks in Egypt next week.
In a village near the city of Tulkarm, Israeli soldiers surrounded a house where Mohammad Abu Khazneh, a wanted militant from the Islamic Jihad group, was hiding.
Soldiers brought in bulldozers to level the house after Abu Khazneh fired at them and shot dead a dog sent in to force him out, an army spokesman said. Troops later recovered his body.
An Israeli security source said Abu Khazneh belonged to an Islamic Jihad cell controlled by the group’s Damascus-based leadership and that he was planning further attacks.
Israel had routinely mounted similar assaults during the past four years of violence but scaled back such operations after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Abbas announced the truce in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.
“Resuming the assassinations is a dangerous indicator and Israel will be responsible for any breach of the relative calm and the understandings of Sharm El-Sheikh summit,” Palestinian Planning Minister Ghassan Al-Khatib said.
Meanwhile, a meeting between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Israel’s Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz yesterday raised peace hopes and highlighted Egypt’s role in the region.
The two men, meeting in Sharm El-Sheikh, focused on the implementation of the cease-fire agreed upon in the Feb. 8 summit.
“Mubarak discussed with Mofaz the importance of releasing Palestinian prisoners and stressed that Tel Aviv honor the agreements reached at the summit as soon as possible,” said Egyptian presidential spokesman Suliaiman Awad.
Mubarak also discussed the Egyptian-Israeli agreement to fortify Egyptian presence on the Gaza-Egypt borders. Egypt has offered to deploy 750 national guards along its border with the Gaza Strip once Israel pulls out of the Palestinian territory.
Mofaz told a news conference after talks that Tel Aviv expected to withdraw from the West Bank towns of Jericho and Tulkarm in weeks if not days but made clear the priority was for the Palestinian Authority to dismantle militant organizations.
“We agreed that Jericho and Tulkarm will be transferred to the security responsibility of the Palestinians and I believe this will happen in the coming weeks and days,” Mofaz said.
He was referring to the outcome of his talks with Abbas on Tuesday at the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel.
Mofaz said Israel stood by the agreements of the Sharm El-Sheikh summit but progress depended on the Palestinians.
“I believe that we are (moving) in the right direction but we want to see results against the terror activities that are coming from the (Palestinian) territories.
