NABLUS, West Bank — One Palestinian was shot dead yesterday by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip as soldiers sealed off large parts of the West Bank town of Nablus in an operation to round up wanted militants, sources said.
Fadal Al-Najar, 22, suffered fatal injuries when he was shot in the chest in the Khan Yunis area of southern Gaza, Palestinian medical and security sources added. Israeli military sources said that troops had opened fire in the morning on a group of Palestinians “suspected of hostile activity” in the area.
Meanwhile, troops also carried out searches in Nablus after pouring into the West Bank town in a predawn operation involving some 30 jeeps and four tanks, Palestinian security sources said. Residents were ordered out of their homes from around 4:00 a.m. (0200 GMT) as troops conducted their searches and sealed off large parts of the Old City, or casbah, the sources added.
An Israeli military source confirmed that a curfew had been imposed in the casbah. “There is a curfew in the Old City,” the source said. “There is a tight circle around the city because of alerts that we have.”
The army has been rounding up wanted Palestinians in Nablus and the adjoining Balata refugee camp for some two weeks. The operation was stepped up in the aftermath of a suicide bombing on Thursday carried out by a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who came from a village near Nablus.
Witnesses said on Monday that troops had been pulling out of the area in an apparent winding down of the whole operation. Palestinian security sources also said that around a dozen jeeps had entered the village of Jabaa, to the north of Nablus, at around 3:00 p.m. before troops rounded up 23 Palestinians in a coffee shop in the center of the village.
At least one of those arrested was a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, an armed offshoot of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement. Two Apache helicopters flew overhead during the arrest operation, witnesses added. Meanwhile, four Palestinians were arrested near the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip overnight, Palestinian and Israeli sources said.
In another development, Israel, under international pressure over a giant separation barrier being built in the West Bank, plans minor changes to the route it says will make life easier for Palestinians, security sources said yesterday.
Israel says completed sections of the obstacle of razor wire and concrete are already stopping suicide bombers. Palestinians say the barrier annexes land occupied since the 1967 War and will deprive them of a viable, independent state.
The changes will entail widening the existing opening that links the city of Qalqilya, shut within an enclave by the barrier, to the rest of the West Bank. They will also mean the village of Baka Al-Sharkiya shifts from the Israeli side to the West Bank.
“This change will not make life easier for Palestinians and this wall will destroy the peace process,” chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters. Israel has faced criticism even from the United States, its main ally, over the route of a barrier that loops deep into the West Bank to include Jewish settlements. Washington has trimmed loan guarantees in a show of displeasure.
Some within Israel also appear uneasy with a route that they believe does not offer the best security while breeding added resentment from Palestinians after three years of conflict. “There will be adjustments to the route to make life easier for the Palestinian population, but it will not change the overall picture,” said one senior security source.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has vowed to continue work on the barrier regardless of progress on a US-backed road map for peace meant to lead to a Palestinian state by 2005. Sharon has warned that if the plan fails, the Jewish state will take separation measures that will mean Palestinians end up with less land for a state than they might through negotiations. Security sources say the barrier would be the de facto border.
To show commitment to the road map, Sharon has ordered the removal of four unauthorized settlement outposts in the West Bank — only one of them inhabited. Palestinians have dismissed the move as a publicity stunt.
