Israel Threatens to Re-Take Parts of W. Bank & Washington Says Palestinian State Plan Alive Despite Setback

19/06/2002| IslamWeb

HIGHLIGHTS: Israeli Tanks Enter Jenin as Government Threatens Wider retaliation||How Beautiful It Is to Kill & Be Killed for the Well-being of Future Generations, Palestinian Bomber||Candid Support for Palestinian Bombers From Mrs. Blair in London||Bsharat of Islamic Jihad, Latest Victim of Israel's Widely Condemned Policy of Extra-judicial Killings||Officials in Washington say, Despite the Bombing & Israel's Threat to Re-Take Parts of W.Bank, Palestinian State Plan Still Alive.|| STORY: Seven Israeli tanks moved into the West Bank town of Jenin late Tuesday, Palestinian security officials said.

There were no reports of casualties.

The move came after a Palestinian Resistance bomber blew up a Jerusalem bus, killing himself and 19 Israelis.

It was not immediately clear if the incursion was part of an Israeli response to the bombing. Israeli forces move into Palestinian towns and villages almost every day, looking for so-called suspects, arms and explosives.

Israel's leadership was meeting with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon late Tuesday to discuss an Israeli response to the bombing, the deadliest in Jerusalem in nearly 21 months of a Palestinian intifadha, uprising, against Israeli occupation.

ISRAEL TO RE-TAKE PARTS OF WEST BANK IF RESISTANCE ATTACKS CONTINUE

An Israeli government statement said Wednesday that Israel plans to re-take parts of the West Bank and hold the territory as long as what he called Palestinian "terror" attacks continue. The statement was issued hours after Israeli incursion into Jenin.

The Israeli government statement, issued after a meeting of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's security cabinet, said the plan would be "a change of Israel's policy in response to terror."

Israel radio said late Tuesday that Israeli occupation army operation would be "bigger and wider" than those of the past few weeks. It said Israel's occupation would remain for an unspecified period in areas where Palestinians obtained self-rule under interim peace deals during the 1990s.

The Palestinian Authority denounced the latest Jerusalem bombing, denied Israeli accusations it was to blame and pledged to hunt down those responsible, saying such attacks hurt the national cause. But it called for U.S. help to stop Israeli attacks on Palestinian areas, which hindered its security forces.

HOW BEAUTIFUL IT IS TO KILL & BE KILLED FOR THE WELL-BEINGOF FUTURE GENERATIONS

"This time, I hope I will be able to do it," bomber Mohammed al-Ghoul wrote in a farewell note.

Al-Ghoul wrote he'd tried twice to stage attacks but failed.

In his note, al-Ghoul didn't explain why he'd failed in his previous two attempts to stage attacks. "How beautiful it is to make my bomb shrapnel kill the enemy. How beautiful it is to kill and to be killed - not to love death, but to struggle for life, to kill and be killed for the lives of the coming generation," al-Ghoul said.

Next to his name, he wrote, "Izzedine al Qassam" - the military wing of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance group that claimed responsibility for the attack.

Al-Ghoul's attack - was the 70th Palestinian bombing of its kind in 21 months of a Palestinian intifadha, uprising, against Israeli occupation.

Though al-Ghoul was typical of a bomber attacker, recently Palestinians from other segments of society have come forward as volunteers, including women, high school students and married men.

ANTI-ISRAELI OCCUPATION GROUPS PRAISE BOMBINGS

Anti-Israel occupation groups considered terrorists by the United States met in Beirut Tuesday with senior members of the Lebanese government and praised bombings against Israel.

Among those who attended the meeting were Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior official of Hamas, Ahmed Jibril, founder of the Syria-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Several of the delegates represented organizations that were included Tuesday on an expanded EU blacklist of terrorist organizations.

At the meeting Maher Taher, a Palestinian member of the radical Syria-based PFLP, pledged continued attacks.

CANDID SUPPORT FOR BOMBERS FROM MRS. BLAIR IN LONDON

British Prime Minister Tony Blair's wife, made comments in London Tuesday that opponents and Israelis said appeared to justify Palestinian bombers.

Speaking hours after the Palestinian bombing on the Jerusalem bus, she told reporters: "As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up, you are never going to make progress."

Mrs. Blair, a human rights lawyer, made her comments next to Queen Rania of Jordan at a charity appeal for medical aid for Palestinians.

She drew instant condemnation from opposition Conservatives, and Israeli diplomats expressed regret at her remarks and their timing.

THE LATEST VICTIM OF ISRAEL EXTR-JUDICAL KILLINGS OF SUSPECTED PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE
ACTIVISTS

Israeli occupation forces shot and killed a Palestinian from the Resistance Islamic Jihad group Tuesday, Palestinian witnesses said.

Israeli media said the Palestinian, Yusef Besharat, was responsible for the March 26 killing of two European observers from an international force stationed in Hebron.

Palestinian witnesses said Besharat was shot and killed by Israeli occupation forces after his car was stopped at a roadblock near the West Bank city of Hebron. Another man with Besharat was arrested, they said.

Palestinians said Besharat was stopped at the roadblock and told to remove his clothes, standard army procedure for checking for suicide bombers. They said he was then shot in the head.

Israeli occupation forces have killed dozens of suspected Resistance activists. Israel calls them targeted killings aimed at preventing attacks. Palestinians say they are assassinations. The international community, which condemns them, calls them extra-judicial killings.

On Monday, Israeli forces shot and killed Walid Sbeh, a member of the Al-Aqsa Brigades militia, an offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, as he was driving in his car near Bethlehem.

U.S. PALESTINIAN STATE PLAN STILL ALIVE

U.S. officials in Washington said that, the deadliest Palestinian bombing in Jerusalem in six years has set back but not derailed President Bush's plan for getting a Palestinian state off the ground.

At the same time, Bush was considering sending Secretary of State Colin Powell on a peace mission to the Middle East.
The violence "is setting back chances for peace," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Tuesday. But he and White House officials said the administration would press ahead.

The president's announcement of his strategy for Palestinian statehood will be delayed at least until Thursday or possibly Friday while he completes his options and puts some distance between his announcement and the terror attack that killed nearly a score of Israelis as well as the Hamas bomber, White House officials said.

PHOTO CAPTION

Israeli policemen and medics work around the destroyed number 32 bus at Jerusalem's Pat junction near the neighborhood of Gilo in Jerusalem, June 18, 2002. (TL). Pictures of Muhammed al-Ghoul, 22, on display at the Al Faraa refugee camp near the West Bank city of Nablus, Tuesday June 18, 2002. (TR). Hazaa al-Ghoul, left, the father of Muhammed al-Ghoul, 22, is comforted at his home at the Al Faraa refugee camp. (BL) and the body of Yusef Bsharat at a hospital in the West Bank town of Hebron Tuesday June 18, 2002. Bsharat, an activist in the Islamic Jihad is the latest victim of Israel's widely condemned policy of extra-judicial Killings. (BR