GAZA CITY, 16 December — Israel sowed death and destruction in Palestinian areas yesterday killing in cold blood six people and occupying a Palestinian self-ruled town for the first time since 1994. The Israeli action buoyed by a US veto of a UN Middle East resolution further weakened the authority of embattled Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and gave Tel Aviv a free hand to perpetrate atrocities.
The United States used its veto power to kill the UN resolution that demanded an immediate halt to Middle East violence and said the Palestinian Authority was essential to any peace process.
The vote in the 15-member council was 12 to 1 with 2 abstentions, Britain and Norway. The other two European countries on the council, France and Ireland were among the “yes” votes.
Meanwhile, any hope for diplomatic and political efforts to contain the spiraling violence were further crushed as the United States made plans to pull back peace envoy Anthony Zinni.
Israeli troops shot and killed four Palestinians yesterday when tanks carrying troops hunting for activists plunged deep into Palestinian-ruled territory in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian medical officials said more than 75 people were injured in the raid when some 20 tanks rumbled into Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza.
In the southern Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a fifth Palestinian who they said might have been a bomber trying to infiltrate a Jewish settlement.
The sixth Palestinian was killed by an explosive on the “Green Line” separating Israel from the West Bank near the Palestinian city of Tulkarm.
The latest killings came hours after Washington used its veto to kill the UN resolution urging international monitors for the West Bank and Gaza.
The United States said the monitor plan was biased against Israel and would not promote peace.
In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday criticized Israeli attacks on the Palestinian territories and urged Arafat to take measures to end attacks.
In Beit Hanoun, hundreds of Palestinian youths confronted Israeli troops and tanks which occupied the town in a hunt for militants. They hurled rocks and set tires ablaze.
Israeli troops shot three youths dead in the Beit Hanoun clashes. At the start of the incursion, Israeli soldiers killed a policeman and wounded four as they were patrolling to prevent activists from firing mortars at Israeli posts.
The Israeli Army said it had no report of such incidents. “They are occupying the city completely”, Palestinian Housing Minister Abdel-Rahman Hamad told Reuters.
Palestinian officials also said tanks had thrust into an area near Rafah, to the south, as troops hunted for activists, during which eight Palestinians were killed and about 50 arrested on Friday.
In the West Bank village of Hares, two people were injured when Israeli soldiers opened fire, witnesses said.
The army spokeswoman said Israeli forces “heard an explosion and opened fire where the sounds came from. We saw there was no reaction and then found there was no shooting.”
In Cairo, the 22-member Arab League said Palestinian authorities asked the group to hold an emergency foreign ministers’ meeting on Dec. 20 to discuss the violence. Members are to pass on the request to their governments.
Palestinian security officials said the Israelis arrested three members of the Hamas group in Beit Hanoun. The Israeli Army said it arrested five Palestinians for questioning and demolished the home of local Hamas leader Salah Shahada.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority has ordered the seizure of factories and workshops making mortar bombs, the official WAFA news agency reported yesterday.
At an overnight meeting chaired by Arafat, the Palestinian leadership ordered security services to find all workshops making components for mortar bombs and place them under their control, WAFA said.
In Ramallah, a senior Palestinian officials said Arafat will address the Palestinian people on television today, the first time he has spoken to them since being put under virtual house arrest by Israel earlier this month.
The official Palestinian television’s Gaza base has continued to broadcast despite Israel demolishing Thursday a radio and television antenna in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Israel decided to take the law into its own hands after accusing Arafat of failing to crack down on activists following a bold Palestinian ambush Wednesday night on a bus carrying Jewish settlers, killing 10 of them.
In another development, 13 offices from the Islamic Jihad and Hamas movements in the Gaza Strip have been closed on the order of the Palestinian Authority, a Palestinian police official said yesterday.
He said the closures took place on Friday and yesterday and added three more offices were expected to be closed today. The administration of the two organizations’ mosques will be transferred to the Ministry of Religious affairs, the police official said.
On Wednesday night, the Palestinian Authority ordered the immediate closure of all Hamas and Islamic Jihad offices in the Palestinian territories following a destructive wave of Israeli reprisals for Palestinian suicide attacks.
Arafat has been bunkered at his Ramallah headquarters in the West Bank since Dec. 3, trapped by an Israeli blockade and under enormous pressure from Israel and the United States to rein in activists involved in anti-Israeli attacks.
In West Jerusalem, Israel’s leftwing, demoralized after nearly 15 months of regional bloodshed, held a tiny peace rally yesterday to protest Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s military strikes on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Two hundred activists from Peace Now — the group which favors negotiations and dismantling Jewish settlements — held aloft posters protesting against the current ground and airstrikes on the Palestinian Authority, triggered by a wave of Palestinian attacks on Israel.
