HEBRON, 1 November — Israeli forces yesterday assassinated two members of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, including a top commander it said helped plan five deadly suicide attacks, and killed four other Palestinians. Israeli Army tanks and troops, meanwhile, smashed further into Palestinian self-rule areas of the West Bank as they continued a campaign to hunt down militants following the assassination of a Cabinet minister. An Israeli helicopter gunship fired a missile and killed Jamil Jadallah, a 30-year-old commander of Islamist Hamas, in a house in the Alzawya district of Hebron, Palestinian security officials said. The explosion wounded two other people, they said.
The Israeli Army alleged Jadallah was a senior member of Hamas’ armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, and had helped launch the deadliest suicide attacks of the Palestinian uprising. Around the same time as Jadallah was killed, Israeli tanks besieging the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem fired heavy machine-guns and killed Hamas member Abdullah El-Jarushi, 39, medics said.
As dusk approached, Israeli soldiers mortally wounded two activists of Arafat’s Fatah movement, Muhammad Assus, 32 and Rabih Ghannam, 22, in a firefight after the pair shot at a passing Israeli car between Tulkarem and the town of Nablus, Palestinian officials said. Fatah officials said both men died in Israeli custody after being shot. Two Palestinian policemen were also killed in a skirmish after they allegedly opened fire on an Israeli tank at one of their checkpoints near the besieged northern West Bank town of Qalqilya, Palestinian security officials said.
They also came after Israeli tanks rumbled into the Palestinian self-rule village of Arrabeh in the north of the West Bank at dawn and special forces and paratroopers arrested four members of Islamic Jihad, as well as four relatives of one of the suspects.
The hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday he was ready to negotiate with the Palestinians and that he himself would lead the talks, although he gave no time frame for a possible meeting. In response, Palestinian Minister for International Cooperation Nabil Shaath said the Palestinian Authority was ready to negotiate with Sharon but that Israel’s latest assassinations were aimed at sabotaging peace moves.
Speaking to leaders of the World Jewish Congress in the Israeli parliament, Sharon said “we are ready to negotiate. Myself, I am going to lead all the negotiations, I really believe in that.”
Responding to Sharon’s statement, Shaath said: “We are always ready to negotiate, if Sharon is ready to come to the negotiating table according to international resolutions.” He was alluding to UN Resolution 242, which calls on Israel to withdraw from all land occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. But Shaath said Sharon appeared more interested in sabotaging peace moves than in promoting them. Shaath said Sharon’s government usually sends hit squads to kill Palestinian activists each time international diplomatic efforts increase and the Palestinian Authority establishes quiet on the ground.
