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Posted on 08/24/2003 8:16:34 PM PDT by yonif
Israeli helicopters fired at least three missiles at an unidentified target in Gaza City on Sunday, witnesses said. The IDF has confirmed that there was an attack in Gaza.
According to sources in Al-Shiffa Hospital in Gaza, four were killed, one person critically injured and several more injured lightly.
Hamas supporters identified two of the bodies as Hamas members Ahmed Aishtawi and Wahid Hamaf.
The attack occurred near the Presidential Headquarters, which is near both the "Beach" refugee camp and a station housing Force 17, Arafat's personal bodyguard.
Palestinian Television reported that the attack was on a civilian car.
The apparent liquidation came after Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz concluded a security assessment with his top advisers and IDF brass with a decision to continue to take actions to halt terror, defense officials said.
"There is no mercy for those who murder children and babies," said Israel government spokesperson Danny Seaman. "There is no excuse or reason to justify the murder of innocents. The children and babies who were blown apart on a Jerusalem bus were defenseless, the State of Israel is not."
According to Israeli officials, the defense establishment determined that the Palestinians had failed to take any real action to dismantle the terrorist organizations. It said that all the crackdown in the Gaza Strip was done "for show" in order to release heavy international pressure on the Palestinian Authority to clampdown on terror groups.
"The PA has refused to budge and take serious action against the hardcore of terrorism rooted in the Gaza Strip," former UN Ambassador and advisor to the Prime Minister's Office Dore Gold told The Jerusalem Post.
"With total lack of movement by the Palestinians to confront terrorism, Israel is left with no choice but to act on its own to defend its civilian population," said Gold.
Mofaz reiterated his claim that Yasser Arafat was undermining the peace process and the government of Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, and was directly responsible for the recent deterioration.
The assessment came after Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon said Israel would strike at the "radical core" of the terrorist groups if the Palestinians failed to take any real action against them.
Ya'alon took a first hand look at the battle grounds Sunday, visiting troops in Nablus and in the Gaza Strip and issued a stern warning that the terrorist leadership, even those abroad in Syria, was in the army's sights.
But his comments came as the IDF was mainly put in "pause" mode and sat back to give the Palestinian police forces in the Gaza Strip a chance to clampdown on armed militants. Senior officers warned that this halt would not last long under the present circumstances. They spoke before Sunday night's liquidation attempt.
"You can't ignore the fact that Hamas continues to stage attacks. Twenty-one dead. Those who are responsible are the Hamas leadership in Syria and in the (Gaza) Strip and whoever supports them and allows them to act and funds them are not innocent," Ya'alon told military reporters Sunday.
The IDF chief gave rare praise to the Palestinian security forces for its operation in Rafah that uncovered four tunnels used for weapons smuggling.
"For the first time they are doing something," Ya'alon said. "It is a first step. If it is the first step of many then it may rescue the situation and it has to include the dismantling of the terrorist infrastructure."
But he warned that if its purely cosmetic to ward off American and international pressures, then Israel would step in and finish the task.
"The radical core of terrorists are in the Gaza Strip," Ya'alon said. "The actions by the Palestinians reported as their first in Gaza have not yet touched this radical core. If at the end of the day they don't, then we will have to and that certainly means inside the Gaza Strip."
"As far as we are concerned, the radical core, from the first to the last, are targets for liquidation," Ya'alon said.
Military sources in the Southern Command said that their forces have been put on "hold" for the time being to see how the Palestinian actions pan out. But they have also been beefed up, particularly around Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanun in the northern coastal strip where Kassem rockets have been launched.
The defense establishment decided Sunday night to open a number of roadblocks and allow Gazan fishermen to return to sea. Israel was also allowing the crossings at Allenby into Jordan, Rafah into Egypt and Karni from the Gaza Strip into Israel to remain open.
The focus of the army's operations in the West Bank remains in the city of Nablus where troops have divided the casba into four sections. Under curfew, the hundreds of residents there are not allowed to move without being checked by troops.
Visiting the troops in the Samarian city, Ya'alon said Sunday defended the IDF actions that killed Hamas bomb makers in Nablus and an Islamic Jihad leader in Hebron two weeks ago that led to retaliatory suicide bombings. Ya'alon maintained that Hamas and Islamic Jihad had continued to attempt to carryout attacks during the ceasefire and that the men were killed resisting arrest.
"We did not carryout one liquidation during the entire ceasefire," Ya'alon said.
Ya'alon added that Mohammed Sidr, the Islamic Jihad cell leader killed in Hebron had been planning to dispatch two suicide bombers to Jerusalem this week. The two bombers, one from Jenin and one from Nablus were arrested before they could carry it out.
While in Nablus, Ya'alon was informed of a bomb factory uncovered that contained over 80 kilos of TATP explosives, chemicals and makeshift warheads similar to Kassem rockets produced in the Gaza Strip. The army said it was further proof that the Palestinians were trying to transfer their missile-making technology to the West Bank from the Gaza Strip.
Forces in Nablus have been aided greatly by drones who have been helpful in locating militants, including two who were shot hiding on the roof of the Rafadiya Hospital last Friday.
On Friday, US President George W. Bush instructed the US Treasury to freeze the assets of six top Hamas leaders, placing them squarely in the hairline in the war against terror. Hamas's response was to dub him on Saturday "the number one enemy of Islam".
Adam Khan and Joel Leyden contributed to this report
What other type of car would Hamas terrorists be driving? I guess they're trying to say that the dead guys were "civilians," not terrorists.
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Very well, a pity about the car.
Very well, a pity about the car
Was it a nice car?
its hard to believe that anyone could do this...
n its even harder to believe that you could live next door to someone doing this; n not doing anything about it...
No matter. Being a civilian car, it was protected by the Detroit Convention.
Nice shootin', Tex.
arianna huffington said it was a "gas guzzler" anyway...
Makes you wonder how the IDF attached the homing devices.
They must have CNN in hell.
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