West Bank killings cast shadow over Palestinian vote
AFP
Date: 09-29-05
JENIN, West Bank (AFP) - Three Palestinian militants were shot dead by the Israeli army in the West Bank, casting a shadow over municipal elections in the territory being contested by the Islamist group Hamas.
One of the main leaders of another armed faction, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, said his movement was breaking off a truce after the killings which ensured the sixth year of the intifada began with a new round of funerals.
The spike in violence in the West Bank, which comes after a wave of bombings in Gaza, has punctured confidence engendered by Israel's recent pullouts from occupied Palestinian territory which Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made clear were not about to be repeated.
Palestinian security sources said the three militants who were shot dead in the northern Jenin area included two members of Islamic Jihad and a local leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Samer al-Saadi.
An Israeli army spokesman confirmed that they had been killed "during exchanges of fire" in the latest phase of a mass arrest operation that was launched across the West Bank last weekend.
"We will no longer adhere to or respect the truce after the assassination of Samer al-Saadi," Zakaria al-Zubeidi, one of the top figures in Al-Aqsa told AFP. "This crime cannot go unpunished and we will respond to it."
Al-Aqsa signed up to the truce in March during talks in Cairo convened by Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, who condemned Thursday's shootings.
"This escalation puts the peace process into a dangerous impasse," he said.
"We condemn these acts and call on Israel to stop, especially as all the Palestinian movements have committed themselves to respect the truce and to end the carrying of weapons."
Hamas is in theory observing the truce, reiterating its commitment to the always shaky agreement after a barrage of rocket attacks on Israel over the weekend launched from its Gaza Strip stronghold.
Israel had been conducting a string of air strikes in recent days on the territory that its ground forces left little more than two weeks ago.
The military said two shells had been fired from inside Gaza on Thursday, landing near an army base but without causing injuries.
Residents living in Gaza said there had been no fresh Israeli raids.
In a bid to further restore calm to strife-torn Gaza, Palestinian security services began imposing a ban on the bearing of weapons in public.
US President George W. Bush is set to press Abbas on the security situation in Gaza during talks at the White House on October 20 which were announced by the Palestinian leader on Wednesday.
"It is important that the Palestinian leadership act to end violence in Gaza and that means policing Gaza to prevent violence from occurring in the first place and we are there to support them as they do so," Bush's spokesman Scott McClellan said.
The recent spate of rocket attacks as well as the kidnap and murder of an Israeli in the West Bank has stiffened Sharon's resolve to hamper Hamas's planned participation in January's legislative elections.
In the first test of its popularity since the Gaza pullout, Hamas was pitting itself against the ruling Fatah faction in municipal elections being held in 104 West Bank municipalities.
Organisers reported no incidents of Israeli authorities hampering the voting in the occupied territory amid a high turnout.
However, Israel's foreign ministry reiterated its argument that Hamas should not be allowed to run, as its refusal to respect the Jewish state's right to exist contravenes the now largely defunct 1993 Oslo autonomy accords.
Sharon has faced accusations from former premier Benjamin Netanyahu, who is challenging him for the leadership of the right-wing Likud party, that the pullout from Gaza and a small parcel of the West Bank has strengthened Hamas.
The premier ruled out another unilateral withdrawal from parts of the West Bank, saying his government remained committed to the troubled US-backed roadmap peace plan.
"We have no intention to even think about another plan apart from the roadmap, contrary to the rumours which were put about yesterday," Sharon said.
One of his advisors, Eyal Arad, had suggested on Wednesday that Israel might make a unilateral decision to fix the borders of the West Bank and annex parts of the territory if the peace process continued to stall.
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. |
|