GAZA CITY, 30 June 2006 — One day into its invasion of the Gaza Strip, Israel yesterday arrested dozens of Palestinian politicians in an attempt to use them as bargaining chips in negotiations for the freedom of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. The Palestinians, meanwhile, killed a kidnapped Israeli, settler Eliyahoo Ashre.
Global condemnation of the Israeli action was swift and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas asked the United Nations to help secure the release of the Cabinet ministers and lawmakers. “We have received an appeal on behalf of the presidency of the Palestinian Authority for the immediate release of these people,” Alvaro de Soto, the UN special envoy for the Middle East peace process, said. De Soto said the United Nations would raise the issue with the Israeli government, but did not give further details.
Earlier a Palestinian presidency statement issued in Ramallah condemned the destruction of the only power station and bridges in Israeli bombing in Gaza as barbaric. “Punishing every man, woman, and child in Gaza in this very cruel way is beyond belief, as this will terribly affect every aspect of Palestinian life in Gaza now and in the near future.” Calling for international intervention, the president said: “It is incumbent on the world community, states and civil society organizations to intervene and try to put an immediate end to the Israeli attacks.”
Hundreds of Palestinian fighters wielding automatic rifles and anti-tank weapons took up positions waiting for Israeli forces to open a second front in the northern Gaza Strip, a day after tanks and infantry pushed into the south of the territory.
An Israeli aircraft fired a missile at a vehicle carrying a senior Islamic Jihad activist in Gaza City, slightly wounding him, while activists blew a 4-meter wide gap in the border wall between Gaza and Egypt.
The Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), one of the groups believed to be responsible for the abduction of Cpl. Shalit, said their fighters killed settler Ashre and the Israeli Army confirmed that the settler’s body was found Wednesday night in the A-Tira neighborhood of Ramallah. Israeli intelligence said that the troops found the body buried in a field and determined that he was shot in the head soon after he was kidnapped Sunday. In a statement, the PRC vowed not to provide information about whether Cpl. Shalit was alive or dead.
Israel Radio said Shin Bet security chief Yuval Diskin had warned Abbas on the day of the kidnapping: “If the soldier is not returned in 24 hours, Israel will not allow the Palestinian government to survive.” In a night-time blitz in the occupied West Bank, troops arrested Finance Minister Omar Abdel-Razeq and seven other Cabinet members — a third of the Hamas Cabinet — along with 24 legislators of the group, Palestinian officials said. “(This)... is a preplanned plot to destroy the Authority, the government and the Parliament and to bring the Palestinian people to their knees,” Hamas lawmaker Mushir Al-Masri said.
Five of the Cabinet ministers were arrested at the same Ramallah hotel. Ahmed Al-Najjar, a receptionist at the hotel, said he was asleep when troops arrived after midnight, demanded a list of guests, and took the Hamas men from their rooms at gunpoint.
Israel said 64 Hamas officials in all were detained and it vowed to seize other members of the group. “Recent events and especially those of the last few days prove that the results of the elections in the Palestinian Authority were translated into a government policy of terrorism,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
In an implied threat to Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and his Syrian host, Israeli warplanes buzzed one of President Bashar Assad’s palaces on Wednesday. A Syrian official said the air force fired at the planes.
Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Naji Otari said the Israeli action was meant to divert attention from Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip. “This aggression represents Israeli piracy that aims at covering up the savage crimes the Israeli occupation forces are committing in the Gaza Strip,” Otari said at a news conference with Jordanian Prime Minister Marouf Al-Bakhit.
— Additional input from agencies
