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Israel Deals Blow to Truce, Kills Three Palestinians
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The new Israeli killings pose a renewed threat to the shaky truce observed by Palestinian factions. (Reuters)
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QABATIYA, West Bank, June 7, 2005 (IslamOnline.net
& News Agencies) – Israeli occupation forces killed three
Palestinians on Tuesday, June 7, during separate military offensives
in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, dealing another blow to a
fragile ceasefire observed by the Palestinian resistance factions.
Mraweh Khaled Kamil, a local leader
of the Islamic Jihad's military wing in Jenin, and Nasser Zakarneh, a
23-year-old unarmed Palestinian policeman, were gunned down by Israeli
forces during an incursion into Qabatiya town, near Jenin, Agence
France Presse (AFP) said.
Palestinian residents and medics said
Israeli forces encircled a house during the operation and exchanged
fire with armed Palestinians holed up inside.
The occupation army called in
reinforcement and had one of its bulldozers raze the house to the
ground.
Nine Palestinian civilians were also
wounded in the Israeli raid, Palestinian sources told AFP.
Israeli military sources said the
offensive was staged in hunt of members of the Islamic Jihad, adding
one solider was lightly hurt during in the process.
Following the Israeli raid, hundreds
of Palestinians marched through downtown Jenin chanting "revenge,
revenge," after the body of the Jihad leader was brought to
hospital.
Few hours before the Qabatiya
operation, Israeli forces gunned down a Palestinian in the Rafah area
of the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian and Israeli sources said.
Israeli military sources said the man
was shot dead by Israeli soldiers in the early hours on the border
between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.
The latest deaths raised to 4,765 the
number of people killed since the September 2000 launch of the
Palestinian Intifada, including 3,703 Palestinians, according to an
AFP tally.
The aggressions were the latest
Israeli violations of the ceasefire agreed to by Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon at a landmark summit in
Egypt February 8.
Palestinian resistance factions,
which have been observing a de facto ceasefire, agreed last month in
Cairo to extend the truce until the end of the year.
"Wisdom"
The raids came only few hours after
Egypt urged the Israeli government to recognize the "great
wisdom" shown by the Palestinian factions in respecting the de
facto truce.
"Under Abbas's leadership, the
Palestinians were an active partner capable of making peace and
abiding by it in a way that would achieve the aim of the establishment
of an independent Palestinian state," President Hosni Mubarak's
spokesman Suleiman Awad told reporters after summit talks with King
Abdullah II of Jordan Monday.
He urged the Israeli government to
give the Palestinian leader greater acknowledgement for the progress
he had made in restructuring Palestinian institutions and security
organs since his election in January.
"Impractical"
Egypt, the first country to sign a
peace treaty with Israel, also warned Tel Aviv not to ask too much
from the Palestinian leader, describing repeated demands to disarm the
Palestinian factions as "unrealistic and impractical", AFP
said.
"Abu Mazen (Abbas) does not have
a magic wand to implement the demands being made of him," Awad
said.
"Demanding of Abu Mazen that he
dismantle the infrastructure of Palestinian groups is unrealistic and
impractical."
The Egyptian spokesman questioned how
the Israeli government could expect the Palestinian leadership to
comply with the Israeli demands when Tel Aviv is adopting a
softly-softly approach with Jewish settlers opposed to its plans to
withdraw from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank outposts this summer.
"All of us are aware of the
meticulous care with which the Israeli government is handling Jewish
settlers in Gaza and the West Bank who are rejecting implementation of
the Israeli withdrawal plan," said Awad.
"Israeli is acting in such a
calculated way to avoid sliding into confrontation with them.
"If this is how Israel behaves,
how can it then turn round and ask Abu Mazen to get bogged down in a
confrontation with the Palestinian organizations?"
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