TELAVIV, 5 July — Hopes for a peaceful resolution in the Middle East disappeared in a hail of bullets yesterday as Israeli forces seriously wounded a Palestinian in an assassination attempt in the West Bank. The shooting came after Israel’s Security Cabinet gave the army the green light to “toughen its methods” in dealing with the Palestinians, who warned the Jewish state’s return to direct attacks would plunge the region into chaos.
Members of the Security Cabinet, which met under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, demanded the immediate elimination of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, holding him responsible for the killings of Israelis. Some ministers also proposed that Israel reoccupy Palestinian self-rule areas.
Hezam Natcheh was shot three times in the stomach in the flashpoint West Bank town of Hebron, in what Israeli Army radio said was a bid to “eliminate” an important member of Arafat’s Fatah movement.
It said Natcheh was wanted for involvement in ambush attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians in Hebron, where around 400 Jewish settlers live under heavy Israeli guard amid 120,000 Palestinians.
He was in serious condition after the shooting, which came shortly after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon led a reportedly contentious four-hour meeting of the Security Cabinet on how to deal with the ongoing Palestinian uprising.
Arafat accused Israel of violating a US-brokered cease-fire by deciding to target Palestinian activists. “By taking such serious decisions, and sending helicopter fighters, the Israeli government created a serious security situation despite the efforts to restore calm and strengthen the cease-fire,” the Palestinian news agency WAFA quoted Arafat as saying.
Meanwhile, Syria and its ally in Lebanon, the Hezbollah, threatened action against Israel yesterday, three days after fierce fighting between the two sides on the Lebanese border. Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah vowed that his organization would multiply its attacks on Israel in the disputed Shebaa Farms border territory.
“Each time we get, we will seize the occasion to hit the Israeli occupation forces,” Nasrallah said in an interview with the Lebanese daily As-Safir. “We have ordered an increase in anti-Israeli operations.
“The fact that Syrian positions are taken as targets by the Israeli Army will not affect our determination to pursue the resistance until the liberation of the Shebaa Farms sector,” Nasrallah said.
