WEST BANK: ISRAELI TROOPS HAVE SWEPT INTO THE JENIN REFUGEE CAMP SEARCHING FOR PALESTINIAN MILITANTS

Record ID: 275246

  • Title: WEST BANK: ISRAELI TROOPS HAVE SWEPT INTO THE JENIN REFUGEE CAMP SEARCHING FOR PALESTINIAN MILITANTS
  • Date: 27th August 2002
  • Summary: JENIN REFUGEE CAMP, WEST BANK (AUGUST 26, 2002) (REUTERS) 1. SLV ISRAELI ARMY JEEPS AND TANKS IN STREETS OF JENIN REFUGEE CAMP (2 SHOTS) 0.15 2. SLV PALESTINIAN MAN SITTING AT ENTRANCE OF HOUSE; SLV ISRAELI TROOPS IN STREETS OF JENIN (5 SHOTS) 1.02 3. AV MILITARY HELICOPTERS OVER CAMP; SLV SOLDIERS WALKING IN STREETS; HAS ARMY JEEPS IN JENI
  • Embargoed: 11th September 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: JENIN REFUGEE CAMP, WEST BANK
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Reuters ID: LVA4YI1LHOP7YI1232VM5UV0AQMD
  • Story Text: Israeli troops in armoured vehicles have swept into
    the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank and hunted
    house-by-house for Palestinian militants as Israel's defence
    chief insisted a security deal meant to ease violence remained
    intact.

    Israeli troops were looking for Palestinian militants
    from Hamas and Islamic Jihad when they marched through the
    Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin, in the West Bank, on Monday
    (August 26, 2002)
    The refugee camp has been the scene of some of the
    bloodiest fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinians in
    the 23-month-old Palestinian revolt.

    Witnesses in the camp said Palestinian gunmen shot at
    troops as they rolled into the camp, but there was no
    resistance after soldiers began going house-to-house in the
    densely populated warren.

    The army has re-entered the camp, a haven of Islamic
    militants, several times since the April battle in which
    combatants suffered heavy casualties, including 13 soldiers
    killed in a booby-trapped house, in a spring offensive
    across the West Bank spurred by a wave of Palestinian suicide
    bombings.

    Citing what it called persistent intelligence warnings of
    suicide attacks, Israeli forces resumed raids in pursuit of
    militants over the weekend amid an apparent stalemate over how
    to push forward the "Bethlehem-Gaza First" plan.

    The plan, agreed-upon by the warring sides in the most
    recent attempt to move back to the negotiating table,
    envisages phased army withdrawals from areas of the West Bank
    and Gaza granted self-rule under 1994-95 interim peace deals.

    In return, Palestinian police have promised to take
    forthright action to curb militant violence.

    But after a prompt pullout from Bethlehem, Israel's pledge
    to relax restrictions on Palestinian travel in the Gaza Strip
    has yet to be carried out and Israeli officials dismissed the
    prospect of a new withdrawal from the divided city of Hebron
    in the near future.

    Palestinian officials have accused Israel of freezing the
    Gaza-Bethlehem deal after talks on a Hebron pullout foundered
    over the weekend.

    Israel's Shin Bet internal security service has detained
    seven Arab Israelis on suspicion of helping a Palestinian
    suicide bomber blow up an Israeli bus three weeks ago,
    security sources said on Monday.




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