Posted on 03/02/2003 5:42:54 PM PST by RCW2001
The Associated Press
JERUSALEM March 2 —
Israeli tanks firing shells and machine guns moved into two neighboring refugee camps in central Gaza on Monday, witnesses said. No casualties were reported in the incursion, the second into Gaza in as many days.
Witnesses said the focus of the incursion was the Bureij camp, where tanks surrounded two houses and soldiers demanded residents leave. One of the houses belongs to Mohammed Taha, the local Hamas leader. Gunfights were reported.
The violence came after Israel's new Cabinet ministers officially took office on Sunday, bringing to power a hawkish government that appears set to continue using tough military measures to suppress the 29-month-old Palestinian uprising.
On Sunday, Israel defense minister pledged to step up assaults on Hamas militants on a day when three Palestinians were shot and killed in the Gaza Strip and Israeli media reported that Hamas militants had plotted to assassinate Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
The new violence coincided with Israel's new Cabinet taking office, seating a government that appears set to continue tough military measures to suppress the 29-month-old Palestinian uprising.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority asked Israel for travel permits for members of the PLO's Central Council and the Palestinian legislature the bodies that will determine the responsibilities of a Palestinian prime minister, the new position Yasser Arafat has reluctantly agreed to create.
Mideast mediators have pressured Arafat to share power to further a U.S.-backed plan for Palestinian statehood by 2005. The Central Council meets March 10 and the legislature March 12.
Israel is reviewing the names of the 124 Central Council members and 88 legislators and will deny travel permits to those directly involved in violence against Israel, Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin said Sunday.
Israeli media on Sunday reported the arrest in Bethlehem of a member of a Hamas cell that allegedly planned to explode a bomb near Sharon's motorcade and to attack a synagogue. The reports said the militant, identified as Fahdi Murtaja, was arrested on Feb. 7.
Neither the Israeli government nor Hamas had any immediate comment.
In Gaza, Israel's army continued an offensive triggered two weeks ago by a Hamas attack on an Israeli tank that killed the four-man crew.
Two Palestinians were killed in an overnight raid in the town of Khan Younis, in which Israeli forces destroyed buildings near a Jewish settlement.
Israeli forces met fierce resistance, the military said. Firefights erupted with gunmen who used a school, a hospital and a mosque as cover when firing on troops, the army said. In one incident, several gunmen were seen crawling on the floor of the emergency room in the town's Nasser Hospital as shots were heard outside. Witnesses said the gunmen were not firing from the hospital, but were pinned down by Israeli fire as they accompanied wounded friends.
At the funerals of the two men later Sunday, a 9-year-old boy died from gunfire though it was unclear who shot him. Palestinian doctors said he was shot by Israeli troops who opened fire after militants fired weapons in the air, a common practice during funerals. The Israeli military said soldiers returned Palestinian fire twice in the area on Sunday but didn't know if they hit the child.
Troops also demolished an eight-story apartment building that gunmen used 14 times in the past four months as a firing position, the army said. Several abandoned structures used by gunmen were also torn down, the army said. Palestinians said 85 tenants were made homeless.
After daybreak, residents of the apartment building rummaged through the rubble for their belongings.
The owner of the apartment building, Mohammed Akher, 42, said Israel was only increasing resentment. "If they thought that destroying and killing people will bring security and calm they are mistaken. It will increase the bloody cycle of violence and violence will bring more violence," said Akher.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, on a tour of Israeli army positions near the West Bank city of Nablus, said the efforts would intensify.
"In the Gaza Strip, we are increasing the pressure and the scope of our operations against Hamas ... and we will also operate that way in the West Bank," Mofaz said. "We want to arrive at a situation where the terror organizations invest more and more (effort) defending themselves."
Mofaz is one of the few ministers from Sharon's first Cabinet to retain his job.
The team he fashioned last week, after his Likud won January elections, includes the hawkish National Religious Party and National Union, which oppose the creation of a Palestinian state. The more moderate Shinui Party is also in the coalition, but for the moment it is not pressing Sharon for any peace initiatives.
President Bush last week said that after the Iraq crisis is settled it will concentrate on ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He said the Palestinians must end violence and replace their leadership but also urged Israel to move quickly toward establishing a viable Palestinian state and stop building Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.
Guaranteed to create more funerals. Don't these Darwin wannabees know, "what goes up, must come down"?
How absurd, Does this reporter actualy think a dozen tanks could drive into a city blasting away and no one would be hurt! Reality, what a concept. One that should be taught in basic journalism class...
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