Posted on 03/08/2002 11:01:11 PM PST by kattracks
GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces inflicted the bloodiest losses on the Palestinians on a single day in 17 months of conflict on Friday, killing 35 people in fierce raids after a deadly attack on a Jewish settlement.
Israel's air, land and sea assaults on the West Bank and Gaza Strip followed Washington's surprise announcement that it was sending its Middle East envoy back to the region to reactivate long-dormant U.S. peacemaking efforts.
Amid a deepening cycle of retribution, the Palestinian death toll in the uprising against Israeli occupation broke through the 1,000-mark while the number of Israeli fatalities stood at nearly 320, according to a tally compiled by Reuters.
A general, a nine-year-old boy, a hospital administrator and ambulance worker were among Friday's Palestinian dead.
A Palestinian gunman killed five Israelis overnight in a settlement in the Gaza Strip, drawing a punishing Israeli sweep through a village. An Israeli soldier was also killed in fighting in the Tulkarm refugee camp in the West Bank.
With violence escalating by the hour, U.S. President George W. Bush said on Thursday that he was sending Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni back to the region next week to seek a ceasefire to end the months of bloodletting.
"I am deeply concerned about the tragic loss of life and escalating violence in the Middle East," Bush said in Washington. "There are no assurances (of success). That's not going to prevent our government from trying."
Bush's decision to try again to halt the fighting followed Arab and international calls for the United States to re-engage in an eye-for-an-eye conflict that has defeated peacemakers.
It will also refocus attention on a U.S.-based plan for a truce leading to talks that Washington sees as a first step before a wider Saudi proposal for Arab-Israeli peace can be pursued. Two previous missions by Zinni have ended in failure.
Following a strategy charted by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to hit the Palestinians hard until they sue for peace, the Israeli army sent troops and tanks backed by helicopters into Bethlehem, revered as the birthplace of Jesus.
CRIES OF "DEATH TO ISRAEL"
Seven Palestinians, including a hospital director shot in the head while driving to work, were killed and scores wounded in heavy fighting in towns and refugee camps bordering the Palestinian-ruled city, in the West Bank.
Cries of "Revenge" and "Death to Israel" echoed through Bethlehem's Manger Square as several thousand people, including masked gunmen firing assault rifles in the air, crowded into the stone plaza for the funeral of two Palestinian militants.
Tanks advanced to positions just inside the ancient city before dawn, raising fears among residents of a return to the street battles that raged during a 10-day incursion in October.
Nabil Abu Rdainah, an aide to Yasser Arafat, said the Palestinian leader briefed U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in a telephone call on the "the massacres conducted by Israel against our people" and urged immediate U.S. intervention.
Despite Sharon's offensive, an opinion poll in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on Friday showed that 53 percent of Israelis had no confidence in the right-wing leader, who swept to power last year vowing to restore security to the Jewish state.
NEW FEROCITY
Fighting has reached a new level of ferocity this week, the bloodiest since the start of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000, pushed peacemaking to the sidelines.
Washington until now backed Sharon's insistence on seven days of absolute calm as a condition for implementing the U.S. truce-to-talks plan, but with violence spiralling, a U.S. official said it should be carried out "as quickly as possible".
In the southern Gaza Strip, Israeli forces on a search for militants and munitions in the village of Khuza'a killed 17 Palestinians, including Major-General Ahmed Mefrej, chief of the Palestinian National Security Forces in the area.
Mefrej was the most senior Palestinian commander killed since the uprising began. Colleagues said he was shot helping to defend the village from the Israeli military raid.
The villagers buried their dead to angry chants of "blood for blood, killing for killing" from a crowd of 50,000 mourners.
The army entered Khuza'a after a gunman from the militant Hamas group infiltrated the heavily guarded Atzmona Jewish settlement. He killed five students and wounded more than 20 others in a religious academy before soldiers shot him dead.
Later, Israeli helicopters fired missiles at the offices where Mefrej worked and at least two other targets in Gaza.
The army also reported missile strikes on two security targets near the West Bank city of Hebron. Witnesses said one strike hit a power installation, cutting electricity to Hebron.
In Tulkarm refugee camp in the West Bank, Israeli forces killed six Palestinians, including the nine-year-old boy. A Palestinian stone-thrower was killed in the town of Jenin.
Palestinian sources at Tulkarm refugee camp said Israeli troops were moving through the streets with dogs and calling on men over 18 years old to report to a United Nations school.
Four other Palestinians were killed when Israeli gunboats attacked a Palestinian police station in northern Gaza, among them an ambulance worker trying to reach the wounded.
Gershon Yitzhak, Israeli army's West Bank military chief told reporters soldiers had found several bomb-making laboratories during their latest West Bank operations.
People in Huwara, near Nablus, said armed Jewish settlers lightly injured four Palestinians and damaged the mosque and a clinic during a rampage in their village. Israeli police scuffled with settlers, detaining some and confiscating weapons.
At least 1,006 Palestinians and 319 Israelis have now been killed since the Palestinian uprising began.
Not a single civilized place would allow such a thing.
With violence escalating by the hour, U.S. President George W. Bush said on Thursday that he was sending Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni back to the region next week to seek a ceasefire to end the months of bloodletting."I am deeply concerned about the tragic loss of life and escalating violence in the Middle East," Bush said in Washington. "There are no assurances (of success). That's not going to prevent our government from trying."
Bush's decision to try again to halt the fighting followed Arab and international calls for the United States to re-engage in an eye-for-an-eye conflict that has defeated peacemakers.
It will also refocus attention on a U.S.-based plan for a truce leading to talks that Washington sees as a first step before a wider Saudi proposal for Arab-Israeli peace can be pursued. Two previous missions by Zinni have ended in failure.
This is sheer bone-headed lunacy!Rewarding this murderous, barbaric, lunatic trash with even the HINT of "peace talks" (read as Israeli concessions) will only ensure that the jihad continues. Sending Zinni ensures that the US will be judged incompetent by both sides. (Anthony Zinni gave us the USS Cole bombing. His track record at evaluating terrorists threats has already cost us enough.)
...and screamingly obvious. They don't even have a pretense of impartiality.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.