Israel kills two militants in West Bank shootout
Reuters
Date: 10-30-05
By Wael al-Ahmed
JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed at least two Islamic Jihad militants in a shootout in the West Bank on Sunday, hours after the group agreed to halt rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security sources said.
A week of violence has badly damaged a truce that has lasted for almost nine months, as well as hopes that Israel's withdrawal from the occupied Gaza Strip in September could energize peacemaking in the Middle East.
The gun battle erupted at sunset when Israeli troops surrounded the hideout of an Islamic Jihad militant in Qabatiya, the West Bank home town of the Jihad suicide bomber who killed five Israelis in a marketplace on Wednesday.
Palestinian security sources said at least two gunmen were shot dead. Militants fought troops nearby and Israeli helicopters sent down bursts of gunfire. The army did not comment.
The fighting in the West Bank followed a day of unusual quiet around the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian officials said Islamic Jihad had agreed to halt cross-border rocket attacks and renew its "commitment to calm" as long as there were no Israeli raids. Israel had decided to stop air strikes launched in response to the rockets, they said.
Palestinian militants in Gaza from Islamic Jihad and two other groups said after the West Bank raid that they had fired a series of rockets into Israel, adding that the killings had brought the short-lived deal to an end. No casualties were immediately reported.
Israeli officials said earlier that, if rocket fire from Gaza stopped, then West Bank raids would stop too, but operations against Islamic Jihad would continue following Wednesday's suicide bombing in the city of Hadera.
POLITICAL TESTS
Sharon cannot afford to look weak ahead of looming parliamentary tests in which he is challenged by far rightists who argued that his withdrawal from Gaza would reward militants and encourage violence.
The prime minister struggled on Sunday to win support for new cabinet nominations to be put to parliament on Monday, which critics of his Gaza plan, including many from his own right-wing Likud party, have vowed to oppose.
Islamic Jihad began the latest round of rocket fire from Gaza and carried out the suicide attack following Israel's killing of one of its top commanders in the West Bank a week ago. Air strikes killed nine Palestinians, most of them militants, since Thursday.
The United States had appealed to Israel for caution in its assaults on militants, while also urging Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to take action to rein in the armed groups waging an uprising since 2000.
Palestinians are meant to start disarming the factions under a U.S.-backed "road map," but Abbas has said that to use force could risk civil war. Israel has not met its own road map commitment to freeze West Bank settlement building.
Palestinian Interior Minister Nasser Youssef said on Saturday his forces would confiscate guns on the streets and "deal firmly" with workshops making weapons or explosives. There was no immediate sign of action.
(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza)
Source
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. |
|