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Posted on 06/27/2003 6:46:21 AM PDT by Alouette
The three had been wanted by Israel's security forces.
Preliminary reports say that large IDF forces, with Apache helicopter cover, entered Bakshi and encircled the home of Hamas military leader Amran Al-Awal. He refused to give himself up, and in the ensuing exchange of fire, he, his cousin and another cell member terrorist were killed. At the same time down the block, Fatah terrorist Muhammad Abu Atiye was killed in a similar shoot-out. The Israeli forces then razed the two houses. Al-Awal was the nephew of major terrorist Adnan Al-Awal who himself was saved from an Israeli targeted-killing last year.
Israel considered Al-Awal the nephew a "ticking bomb" and said that he had planned a major terrorist attack for the Netzarim or Karni areas today.
Despite the position taken by left-wing extremists to the effect that precious resources are "wasted" in the protection of the Jewish communities in Gaza, the opposing position of many IDF officials was borne out today. The latter feel that the presence of the communities provides the "excuse" needed for IDF forces to be there and head off terror attacks like the one that nearly succeeded today. "If there were no Jewish communities in Gaza, we would have had to build them," Yitzchak Rabin is reported to have said in defense meetings, and Gaza residents say that this has been repeated by many IDF officers since then.
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What do the names Judea and Samaria refer to?
Judea and Samaria, located west of the Jordan River, with Jerusalem approximately in the center, are historical parts of the Land of Israel. They are currently called the "West Bank", a name created by Jordan after the War of Independence in 1948 when Arab armies overran Judea and Samaria. Despite the fact that virtually the entire world rejected Jordan's annexation, and even after Israel drove the occupiers back across the river in the 1967 Six Day War, the phrase "West Bank" has stuck, and is used to the near total exclusion of any other.
The mountains of Judea are first named in the Book of Joshua, in the account of the conquering of Canaan by the Israelites during the creation of the Land of Israel. From that time to the present, more than 3,000 years, the name Judea has been consistently used to describe the territory from Jerusalem south along the Judean mountain ridge line, extending east from the mountains down to the Dead Sea.
The hill country north and west of Jerusalem has been known as Samaria since the days of King Jeroboam, first king of the breakaway ten northern tribes of Israel after the death of King Solomon.
Judea and Samaria have been known by these names for unbroken centuries, and were registered as such on official documents and maps, by international institutions and in authoritative reference books right up to about 1950. When the correct names became a problem for Palestinian Arabs trying to make their newly-minted claim on the land, it somehow became "politically correct" to use "West Bank" or "occupied territories" instead of the historically accurate names Judea and Samaria.
Photo © Jack Hazut
View of Judean Mountains
Some examples of reference works using the names Judea and Samaria:
- A map published by the US State Department designating the Middle East's "Military Situation" on July 18, 1948 calls the "Arab held" area north of Jerusalem "Samaria"
- In A Survey of Palestine prepared by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in December 1945 and January 1946 the authors used the titles "Judea" and "Samaria" as a matter of course when referring to what later became the "West Bank"
- In United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 adopted November 29, 1947, the world body referred to Judea and Samaria by those historical names
- Every edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, up to the latest (1994) writes extensively concerning the areas politically called the West Bank, and calls them by their historically accurate names: Samaria and Judea. The fact that the "West Bank" is not mentioned once in the 1954 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica indicates just how recently this title entered popular usage, and just how quickly, and deeply, it has taken root.
Sources and additional reading on this topic:
Gaza is like a clown car in the circus. But with 93 clowns inside hitting, biting, punching and cursing each other.
Gaza has very dense population with one of the world's highest birthrates. Parts are very 3rd world with open sewers and trash piles in the empty lots. Gaza means chaotic, aggressive, terminally pissed off and ready to rumble. That's why Egypt didn't want them. Prolly figured they would move to Cairo and make Cairo a chaotic pit ...... or at least more of one than it is now.
I'm ignorant of Gaza's Biblical references.My understanding is there really aren't any, except what P.J. O'Rourke describes as "some exploits of Samsons's" in Judges 16.
There's really no reason for any "settlements" in Gaza except general obnoxiousness, and perhaps something to trade for some of the blocs contiguous to Jerusalem. Still, Hamas shouldn't have sanctuary there...or anywhere, until they agree to at least discuss peace. Sounds like a good job by the IDF.
-Eric
By now I'm sure you know that the Pallies made terror attacks on Israel pre 1967, before it had Gaza. Matter of fact Ariel Sharon came up with some of the counter terror measurs.
IOW rocc, my genius of the Middle East:
Jihad is Jihad to destroy Israel irrespective of whether Jews live or don't live on the West Bank/Gaza. In time you may even admit this is true
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