Posted on 03/06/2002 9:34:14 PM PST by kattracks
Mar 06, 2002 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Twelve Palestinians were killed Wednesday as Israeli forces assaulted Gaza and the West Bank by land, air and sea in retaliation for Palestinian armed attacks against Israel.
It was one of the most intense Israeli assaults in Gaza in almost 18 months of fighting.
A Palestinian public security spokesman said one of the victims was Abdel Rahman Ghazal, who was killed after an Apache helicopter targeted his home in Gaza City. Hamas sources said that Ghazal was an expert in building "Kassam-2" rockets, which have a range of up to 6 miles.
Apache helicopters also fired two missiles at a building next to the office of Palestinian leader Yassier Arafat while he was meeting with European
Union Peace envoy Miguel Angel Moratinos, Palestinian officials said.
A reporter for the Palestinian news agency "Wafa" said the explosions destroyed the building, and shook the doors and windows of Arafat's meeting room.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a top aide to Arafat, told reporters that the Israeli government "continues its war against the Palestinian National Authority and
the Palestinian people."
Palestinian sources said Israeli troops stationed between Nitzarim settlement and Karni commercial passage southeast of Gaza City fired a tank shell, killing two Palestinians.
The sources said the Israeli soldiers suspected the two men were trying to plant a roadside bomb in the area.
The other nine Palestinians were killed Wednesday in the West Bank and Gaza during Israeli raids into Palestinian towns and villages.
Israeli Apache helicopters and naval boats resumed strikes against Palestinian Authority security installations in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security.
The Palestinian public security spokesman said Apache helicopters fired three rockets at two buildings for the elite Force 17 and the security intelligence in Rafah town in the Gaza Strip. No injuries were reported.
Meanwhile, Palestinian witnesses said Israeli naval forces fired heavy gunfire and rockets, targeting PA security and police installations.
The Israeli air, sea and ground operations are a continuation of a decision to continue its reprisal on Palestinian targets in the West Bank and Gaza.
The spokesman said Israeli army tanks stationed at Nitzarim settlement in southern Gaza fired at the new Al Zahra town, on the outskirts of Gaza City.
He said tanks destroyed at a Palestinian public security post east of Gaza City.
The spokesman said earlier Wednesday Israeli F16 warplanes attacked Palestinian General Security offices in eastern Gaza, just before a senior security meeting was due to be held there.
Gen. Abdel Razaq El Majayda, the general security chief, and Gen. Amin El Hindi, chief of intelligence security were among officers scheduled to attend.
He said the building was empty at the time of the attack. Two local residents near the building were slightly injured.
The violence forced internationally acclaimed pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim Wednesday to cancel a recital in the autonomous Palestinian West Bank town of Ramallah. The Israeli army told him it was too dangerous to go there and insisted he would not be allowed past military roadblocks.
Barenboim, a dual Israeli-Argentinean national who is now General Music Director of the Deutsche Staatsoper in Berlin, had planned two piano recitals for peace, one in Jerusalem, and the other in Ramallah.
He wanted to go to Ramallah as an Israeli. "If I go and play Beethoven to people there, it would open their hearts to something; that means we have shared something and there are few things Israelis and Palestinians share today except the sadness and loss of life," he said at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.
Barenboim recalled a concert he performed three years ago at Bir Zeit University, a hotbed of Palestinian nationalists. "It was the first time many people in the audience had also something positive to feel about someone coming from he other side," he recalled.
The Israeli government prohibits its citizens from going to fully autonomous Palestinian areas without special permission, and discourages Israelis from travelling in other West Bank areas as well.
"I am very disappointed," Barenboim commented. "I am sad. It is a pity. It was, perhaps, a chance to build a small bridge," he added.
Barenboim's would-be host, Mustafa Barghouthi of the Grassroots International Protection for the Palestinians, said efforts will be made "to have him visit us in the future. Nothing will break our joint determination to bridge our efforts at working towards a just peace."
(With reporting by Saud Abu Ramadan in Gaza and Joshua Brilliant in Tel Aviv.)
By SAUD ABU RAMADAN AND JOSHUA BRILLIANT, United Press International
Copyright 2002 by United Press International.
We can learn a few things about intelligence from the Israelis.
Putting aside all the upgrades they do on them after they buy 'em from us, the most important part is that the FLY THEM IN COMBAT MISSIONS. Thus they know how to use them. We don't.
Last time we tried using our helis in Kosovo, it was almost a joke. We need to give our military more fighting experience, or we should not be suprised if when the time comes, it takes us a few VERY PAINFUL months to relearn.
Somehow I don't see the thousands that dance in the street at the mention of Jewish or American deaths having a real appreciation of Beethoven.
Is this guy clueless or what?
I thought Barenboim's specialty was Wagner.
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