OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 31 January 2004 — Israeli forces briefly raided the West Bank town of Bethlehem yesterday and dynamited the home of a Palestinian who blew up a Jerusalem bus. The leader of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, which belatedly claimed responsibility for Thursday’s bombing, said his group is making an all-out effort to kidnap Israeli soldiers to use as bargaining chips for Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin spoke a day after a prisoner swap between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah. Israel released more than 400 prisoners, the vast majority Palestinians, in exchange for an Israeli businessman and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers. The Hamas leader appeared to be trying to explain why Hamas has failed to free its prisoners in Israeli jails. “The (Palestinian) factions will not spare any effort to kidnap Israeli soldiers,” Sheikh Yassin told reporters. “They tried many times, but the Israeli soldier today is as cautious as a bird is about its chick.”
About 7,000 Palestinians remain in Israeli custody. “They (Israelis) only understand the language of force, and they will never give us our freedom,” Sheikh Yassin said.
Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, returned the warning, saying Israel had the means to respond to such kidnappings, without elaborating.
“With the same tenacity and determination that we use to return prisoners to Israel, we will get at those who kidnap soldiers,” Gissin said. “And our long arm has always reached them.”
Sheikh Yassin offered no explanation for his group’s delayed claim of responsibility for the Jerusalem bombing. On Thursday, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade said it dispatched the bomber, policeman Ali Jaara, from the Aida refugee camp.
Israeli troops, who encountered no opposition when a column of armored vehicles moved into the center of Bethlehem in the early hours, withdrew from the town in mid-morning. But they maintained a presence in the Aida refugee camp.
— Additional input from agencies
