Posted on 10/30/2005 1:47:14 PM PST by NormsRevenge
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israel and the Palestinians agreed on Sunday to halt their latest round of rocket attacks and airstrikes, an official said, but the deal threatened to fall through even before it was officially announced when Israeli forces killed two Islamic Jihad militants in the West Bank.
Israeli forces encircled a house in the West Bank town of Qabatiyeh after sundown Sunday and killed two militants, including Jihad Zakarne, an Islamic Jihad member accused by Israel of planning a deadly suicide bombing last week, witnesses and Palestinian security officials said. The Israeli military had no comment.
Islamic Jihad responded with a statement threatening to hit Israeli towns near Gaza and called on "Palestinian factions to be united to confront the Zionist campaign against the Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian people in the West Bank."
Palestinians reported hearing the sound of small explosions like rockets in northern Gaza, but the military said nothing landed in Israel.
Militants in Gaza have retaliated for such Israeli raids in the West Bank by firing homemade rockets at Israel, triggering Israeli retaliation. Since the bombing in the central town of Hadera, Israel has targeted Islamic Jihad militants in air strikes, killing eight Palestinians — three of them bystanders — and fired artillery shells at rocket launching areas in Gaza.
It was just such an escalation that the informal agreement was designed to stop. Militant groups planned a meeting late Sunday at an undisclosed location, where they were expected to endorse the latest truce, but the Israeli operation in the West Bank put that in doubt.
At stake for the Palestinians is the economic survival of Gaza. With violence simmering, Israel has kept a tight hold on the exits from the coastal strip, citing security concerns.
The main Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt has been closed for most of the time since Israel withdrew from Gaza last month without an agreement on how to handle security. Vital cargo and worker crossings with Israel also have been closed periodically by the Israelis. On Sunday it reopened two of them, shut since the suicide bomb attack killed five Israelis on Wednesday.
Talks on the Rafah crossing were to resume Sunday night, Israeli officials said. Palestinians complain that the Gaza economy is badly squeezed by the closed crossings, causing widespread hardship.
The announcement of an informal truce came as Danny Arditi, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's counterterrorism adviser, said al-Qaida operatives apparently infiltrated into Gaza last month during several days of chaos following Israel's pullout.
Israeli security also said three Gaza militants crawled through tunnels into Egypt and infiltrated into Israel, planning to set up a cell in the West Bank to fire rockets at Israeli cities, similar to frequent rocket barrages from Gaza.
The three were arrested Oct. 5, security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.
The confusion on the border let thousands of people cross between Egypt and Gaza unhindered, Arditi told Army Radio. "The breaching of the border ... apparently allowed al-Qaida and all kinds of international Jihad elements to enter the Gaza Strip," Arditi said.
Palestinian Interior Ministry spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khoussa denied the allegations and charged that Israel was trying to put pressure on the Palestinian Authority. "There is no sign of any presence and existence of al-Qaida in Gaza Strip," he said.
During his weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday, Sharon promised "severe" retaliation if attacks on Israel continue. Palestinian Interior Ministry officials said Sunday the militants had agreed to halt the rocket fire. They declined to be identified pending an official announcement.
Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a top adviser to Abbas, said Israel and the Palestinians agreed to stop the latest hostilities after U.S. intervention.
"Both sides have agreed to stop the escalation," he said.
An Israeli government official said an understanding apparently had been reached for both sides to halt the fighting, though no official agreement was in place. The official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the matter, said Israel would stop its operations when the Palestinians stop their attacks.
U.S. Embassy spokesman Stewart Tuttle said American officials were not involved in brokering the agreement but noted the U.S. has urged both sides to stop the violence.
Earlier Sunday, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz threatened to wage war on Islamic Jihad until its capabilities are wiped out.
"We are carrying out a broad operation against terrorism, a broad operation against the Islamic Jihad infrastructure in light of Islamic Jihad's intention to continue with suicide bombings," Mofaz said.
Resisting arrest with a machine gun tends to get one killed worldwide.
Nobody seems interestd in this. Why? At least it's Islamic Jihad. I say that because Israel knocked the stuffings out of Hamas what was it, a year ago? Glad to see they are still laying low. Now it seems Israel is taking out the leaders of IJ whenever an attack takes place. I hope they go back to the targeted killings by Apache. That was the GOOD kind of "Whack-a-Mole." What people forget when they talk about that game is that sometimes you get the mole.
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Hamas got pruned pretty good a few months ago, until they were crying to the US to stop the IDF from retaliating. In the end however, Hamas just turned its violence on the Arabs, more Arabs have died from Arab hands this year than from the attention of the IDF.
Perhaps Islamic Jihad will concentrate its killings within the Gaza border too. That would be sort of good, it would tend to be a self correcting situation I guess.
People complain about the hydra growing new heads, I say the more new heads it grows, the dumber they get, and they weren't all that bright in the first place.
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