Four Killed in Israeli Raid on Gaza Strip

29/08/2002| IslamWeb

HIGHLIGHTS: All Four From One Family Killed in The Second Israeli Raid on the Village Ijleen in as Many Days||So-called Arms Shipment Found to be one of Refrigerators||A Visiting U.S. Envoy Has No Plans to Meet Arafat||Occupation Forces Detain Hamas Chief in Hebron, Al-Khalil||Palestinian Police Presents Collaborator in Killing of Hamas Leader, Shehada|| STORY: Israeli tanks raided a coastal village in the Gaza Strip overnight, firing several tank shells at a house and killing four Palestinians in the second raid on the area in as many days, witnesses and hospital officials said.

The consecutive raids on the Sheikh Ijleen village south of Gaza City and Israel's cancellation of security talks with the Palestinians on Wednesday strained a fragile arrangement for reaching a step-by-step truce after 23 months of violence.

"Israeli tanks rolled into our area, they were firing everywhere and one house was hit by at least four shells," said Rami Shamalakh, a neighbor of the family that came under fire.

Hospital officials confirmed that four people had been killed from the al-Hajeen family, including Ruwaida, 55, and her two sons, Ashraf, 23, and Nihad, 17. The fourth person killed was a cousin of the family, Mohammed, 20.

A Reuters correspondent in the main Gaza City hospital saw two bodies being brought in for identification and three people wounded by shrapnel from the strike.

The raid on Sheikh Ijleen was the second consecutive army strike on the area, close to the heavily guarded internationally illegal Jewish settlement Netzarim. Israeli occupation forces launched a strike by sea, land and air on Tuesday in what occupation army sources claimed was an attempt to thwart an arms smuggling operation.

Israeli military sources said that the previous raid on Sheikh Ijleen was prompted by intelligence of an arms smuggling operation using barrels floating offshore.

But Israeli media said that upon examination the containers were apparently refrigerators and not weapons caches.

SATTERFIELD HAS NO PLANS TO MEET ARAFAT

The Gaza raids coincided with a visit by U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield, the first time in weeks a U.S. envoy has met Israeli and Palestinian officials in the region to discuss ways to restore calm.

In keeping with Washington's decision to shun Yasser Arafat, Satterfield had no plans to meet the Palestinian leader, U.S. sources said. He was due to meet Israeli officials on Thursday.

State Department sources said Satterfield discussed Palestinian political and economic reform, economic aid and increasing security efforts between Israelis and Palestinians.

ISRAELI OCCUPATION FORCES DETAIN HAMAS CHIEF FOR HEBRON, AL-KHALIL

Israeli occupation soldiers meanwhile arrested the head of the Palestinian Resistance group Hamas in the West Bank town of Hebron, Al-Khalil.

Abdul Haleq Natsheh, 48, also a Hamas spokesman, was jailed along with two others who were thought to be members of the armed group that has been behind wave after wave of Resistance bombings in .

Israel accuses Natsheh of heading both the group's military and political wings in Hebron and being in contact with Hamas leaders living abroad.

It was the second major catch for Israel in three days. On Monday, the occupation army nabbed the Hamas political leader for Jenin, Jamal Abu al-Hayja, and his number two.

Israel has reoccupied most of the West Bank since mid-June.

The occupation army has since jailed hundreds of suspected Resistance activists.

PALESTINIAN POLICE PRESENTS COLLABORATOR IN KILLING HAMAS LEADER, SHEHADA

The Palestinian man accused of having tipped off Hamas military leader Salah Shehade to Israeli intelligence officers was presented to the press by Palestinian security.

Akram al-Zatma, a 22-year-old student, confessed in front of journalists he had worked with the Israelis for 230 dollars a month in the run-up to the July 22 F-16 bombing of a Gaza City apartment complex that killed a total of 17 people, including Shehade and 9 children.

Zatma, who looked calm and spoke without any prompting by the large contingent of policemen guarding him during the news conference, explained how he was tasked with informing his Israeli contact of Shehade's whereabouts.

"I was contacted an hour before the raid. After Salah Shehade's car arrived in front of the house he was renting in the Al-Daraj neighbourhood, I called him back. Twenty minutes later, the neighbourhood was devastated," he said.

He added that he was not the only collaborator involved in Israel's most controversial "targeted killing" and that his Israeli contact frequently asked him to "check information obtained through other sources."

He called on other collaborators to give themselves up to the Palestinian security services to be tried and "free themselves from the grip of the Israeli intelligence services."

Zatma said he used to meet his contact in a Jewish settlement near the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah.

His arrest was announced on August 20, over his links with the July 22 assassination of Shehade and the July 4 killing of another militant from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

He explained how he was recruited by the Israeli intelligence services in August 2000, a month before the intifada erupted, in exchange for help with his wish to travel to Canada to study English.

PHOTO CAPTION

Doctors treat a wounded Palestinian boy at Gaza hospital following a raid by Israeli tanks August 29, 2002. Witnesses reported the tanks fired several shells into house in the Gaza coastal village killing four Palestinians, including a mother and her two sons. (Suhaib Salem/Reut