Posted on 08/26/2002 3:22:02 PM PDT by knighthawk
Israeli tanks backed by helicopters searched Monday for Palestinian activists in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. Israeli troops searched from house to house as two helicopters hovered in the sky overhead, witnesses said. Exchanges of fire erupted between Palestinians and soldiers, Army Radio reported. The army has been positioned around the camp, imposing a curfew on its residents.
Palestinian sources reported in the afternoon that Israeli special forces in Jenin arrested the most wanted Hamas man in the West Bank, Sheikh Jamal Abu el Hija, 44. According to the sources, the Israelis detained Sheikh Abu el Hija as well as another wanted Hamas member of lower rank.
Abu el Hija lost his hand in fierce fighting between Palestinian fighters and Israeli troops in April. Two months later, Israeli troops blew up his house.
Military officials told AP Abu el Hija was responsible for planning at least six suicide bombings, including an Aug. 4 bus attack in northern Israel that killed nine people and a Jerusalem pizzeria bombing that killed 15.
Also in Jenin, an Israeli officer was lightly to moderately wounded, most likely by a Palestinian sniper in this center of northern West Bank town.
Elsewhere, two mortar shells fell in settlements in the Gaza Strip and an anti-tank rocket was fired at an Israeli outpost near the Gaza settlement of Netzarim.
In the West Bank city of Tulkarem, Israeli troops demolished early Monday the home of a Palestinian suspected of involvement in attacks in Israel that killed eight people, the army said. Soldiers told 11 people who lived in the two-story building where Mansour Eshram lived to evacuate it before placing explosives in the home and detonating them, the witnesses said.
Arrests
Seven Israeli Arab were arrested several weeks ago on the suspicion that they were involved in carrying out the August 4 Meron junction bus bombing, the Israeli media reported Monday.
The seven are members of the Bakri family, which resides in Be'ina, a village in the Galilee. Two of the suspects were named as Muhammad Bakri and his son Ibrahim. According to the reports, some of the family members allowed the suicide bomber, a Jordanian worker they knew, to sleep in their home and drove him to the site of the attack.
The remand of the seven was extended several times in recent weeks.
Petitions
Petitions from three relatives of Palestinian bombers slated for deportation to the Gaza Strip are to be discussed Monday by nine Israeli Supreme Court justices. The petitioners have asked the court to block the deportation order.
The petitioners are Kifah and Intisar Ajuri, brother and sister of the Ali Ajuri, who was killed by Israeli forces two weeks ago, and Abdel Nasser Asida, brother of wanted Hamas activist, Nasser Asida.
The Supreme Court discussion will start with a review of a motion submitted by the family of Gila Sara Kessler, a 19 year old who was killed two months ago by a suicide bomber at French Hill in Jerusalem. The family wants to be listed formally as respondents to the petitioners - they argue that whereas the petitioners are raising claims about justice and morality, the Supreme Court should rule that deportation is actually the just and moral course, because it might deter the next suicide bomber, Haaretz reported.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Supreme Court on Sunday affirmed the Interior Ministry's deportation order against agroup of 52 left-wing French Jewish and Arab activists who arrived in Israel last Tuesday, Israel Radio reported.
Interior Minister Eli Yishai claimed that the members of the group, which include five Jews and 47 Arabs, had initially hidden the fact that they planned to visit the West Bank city of Bethlehem to meet Palestinians and said they were going to Nazareth in the northern area.
The Israeli minister said that after it was decided not to allow them into the country, they raised such a commotion that the pilot refused to take them back to France, thus raising a suspicion that they would disturb the public order during their visit.
A spokesman for the group contended that they had come to hold a peace dialogue with Israeli Jews and Arabs and Palestinians.
Funny how no matter how many times the IDF goes into that place they keep turning up bad guys. I'm beginning to think that the only thing Israel can do is level it and deport the entire town to Gaza.
Let them hold their conferences on buses traversing back and forth across Israel.
In best Mr. Burns voice, "Excellent, Smithers".
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