Posted on 03/03/2002 3:24:51 PM PST by Jhoffa_
Sniper Kills 10 More Israelis
JERUSALEM- Taking aim from a hilltop, a sniper killed 10 soldiers and civilians at a checkpoint Sunday in the deadliest of a two-day string of Palestinian attacks that killed 21 Israelis.
Israel sent tanks and helicopters on retaliatory raids that hit several Palestinian Authority security targets, killing four Palestinian policemen, while Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Cabinet weighed additional military action.
Following the weekend bloodletting, Sharon huddled with senior government ministers and security officials and his office issued a statement just before midnight saying that the inner security Cabinet had approved military plans for ongoing attacks on Palestinian targets.
"Ministers approved an operational program presented by the army to apply constant military pressure on the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian terror organizations," the statement said. "Its object is to halt Palestinian terror." It gave no further details.
Recent days have seen some of the worst carnage in months, and bitter comments by both sides pointed to further confrontations.
"There is no alternative but to put an end to (Palestinian leader Yasser) Arafat's rule," Israeli Cabinet Minister Dan Naveh said in remarks that are expressed with increasing frequency in Israel.
Speaking during an official visit to Mexico, Israeli President Moshe Katsav also denounced Arafat and called on Palestinians to question his leadership.
"The Palestinian people should ask which achievement their president brought to them in the last 18 months," Katsav said in Mexico City. "He must, he should do something to stop the violence."
The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militia linked to Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for three of the four lethal attacks carried out in a 12-hour period from Saturday night to Sunday morning, including the checkpoint shooting.
Militants had vowed to strike after Israeli forces pushed into two Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank last Thursday in search of militants believed responsible for earlier violence. During the incursions, 23 Palestinians were killed in three days, including gunmen, policemen and civilians.
"The Palestinian leadership considers the recent Israeli escalation ... to be aimed at destroying peace and security in the whole region," the Palestinian Authority said in a statement.
The Sunday morning shooting occurred at the military roadblock near the Palestinian village of Silwad. The army described it as an ambush carried out by a single sniper.
The gunman had a clear view from a hill overlooking the checkpoint. After the first Israeli was struck by gunfire, soldiers began climbing the steep hill toward the gunman and more were hit, witnesses said.
An army helicopter soon reached the area, but the assailant had escaped, said Hezi Tsur, a paramedic at the scene.
The dead included seven soldiers and three civilians. Six people were injured, the army and rescue services said.
The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades circulated a leaflet saying the shooting was in response to Israeli army actions in the two refugee camps.
In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a group of soldiers early Sunday along a road that runs on the Israeli side of the fence between the Gaza Strip and southern Israel.
One soldier was killed and four soldiers were wounded, the army said. The military wing of the radical group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for that attack in a telephone call to The Associated Press.
The pair of Sunday morning attacks followed a suicide bombing by a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Saturday night in a crowded ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem. The bombing killed nine Israelis and wounded dozens.
The dead included two babies, one seven months and the other 18 months, and children ages 3, 7, 12 and 15.
"I searched the streets like a mad person, street by street - it was crowded with people and I just screamed and screamed," said Aviva Nachmani, who eventually found her three children unharmed.
The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades also said it shot dead an Israeli police detective riding a motorcycle Saturday night along a desert trail in the West Bank, near Jerusalem.
Israel says Arafat bears responsibility for the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and could halt their attacks if he was serious about ending the Palestinian violence.
Palestinian leaders denounced the suicide bombing and again said they oppose violence against civilians. But they say they cannot tell Palestinians to put down their weapons at a time when the Israeli military is regularly operating in Palestinian areas.
In retaliatory action Sunday, Israeli tanks shelled a Palestinian intelligence office south of Nablus, and the Palestinians said a policemen was killed.
Palestinians also reported a policeman killed when Israeli forces shelled a police installation outside Ramallah in the West Bank.
Two more policemen died when Israeli troops fired on a police post in the West Bank town of Qalqiliya, the Palestinians said.
Meanwhile, the Israeli forces on Sunday pulled out of the Balata refugee camp on the edge of Nablus, where troops had searched for militants and weapons since Thursday.
In the Jenin refugee camp, about 20 miles away, the Israeli forces pulled out Saturday, but sent at least eight tanks back into the camp on Sunday afternoon, camp residents said.
Do you honestly think Dubya is going to green light Sharon and deal with the other Muslim elements that might come into play? Because that would be a real reversal of our Mid East policy.. Frankly, I don't know if he's got the courage to do it.
Definately.. They can get the land (first and foremost) then find some stupid excuse to le the peace "break down" and we are back to square one.. Except, now they have the land.
Land for Peace is a stupid move, I hope Sharon isn't pressured into such a position... In a few months he will have neither the peace or the land and I think everyone knows it. The Saudis included.
Once the Palestinian army has been crushed, Israel should BUILD A WALL. They should bring all the settlers home, retreat to the 1967 borders except they should take all of Jerusalem, and they should have a half-mile-wide Zone of Death on the outside of the wall. They should make the economic sacrifice of forgoing cheap Palestinian labor, and leave the Palestinians to make it on their own with the help of their Arab brethren. In a couple of years the Palestinians will probably have killed each other or starved to death, but that's no concern of Israel.
give it a break...
Well......they ARE! Take it up with Him, not us!
Hummm..
Sharon is doing this.. A "buffer zone" I think they called it.
Sniping is an offensive weapon, not a defensive one. You can't post snipers everwhere and shoot everybody, that is what clusterbombs are for. When the Palis use children and women pretending to be pregnant like the suicide bomber before last that got in using an ambulance who do you shoot? The Jews are trying to not kill civilians, the Arabs are. That is the entire hinge point on this conflict. The moment that the Jews make the decision that civilian casualties in the Arab ranks are necessary to stop this and worth doing, Palestine ceases to exist.
"Well......they ARE! Take it up with Him, not us!
I will some day...and we (God Willing) will laugh at the thought!...but hey... faith cannot be debated so, God bless
I realy doubt that Sharon will loose control, he has demonstrated incredible control so far. But the second part of your statement I find very wise. Indeed the Bible would agree with you. It describes the Nations united to lay siege around the city of Jerusalem. That is just before the point that it describes God finaly taking it personal and destroying every nation that takes part in the siege. The words are something like "I will cut asunder every nation that lays siege on Jerusalem" as in cut up or split up. This final battle is the turning point in the new millenium.
So, for once laconas, a tip of the hat from me. (Don't get usto it -grin-)
Hmm...sounds like an M21, 7.62MM Match Grade, 3-9x Redfield (engaging that many targets that quickly says "semi-auto" instead of "bolt-action" to me).
And IIRC, the US goobermint supplied a bunch of surplus M21s to the Palestinian Authority for their "constables."
Of course, my preferred countersniper weapon is an MLRS barrage or saturation bombardment of the sniper's likely hides with napalm :o)
No actualy, my tribe did not. My tribe went on the trail of tears. The American version of the Battan Death March.
I guess your tribe was Cro-mangon? That is just as valid as your point is it not?
And lighten up, Noah was all our grandaddy...
I was think along the line of deploying them to maintain control outdoor movement of people so that anybody who is doing something suspicious will be taken out. This obviously does not stop all infiltrations. But we will have less people attacking and less people in the street in general. I doubt that, if they know that there are snipers everywhere, they do not go out unless it is absolutely necessary. I thought this is a way of squeezing them harder since Israel cannot exercise more drastic and logical option.
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