VARIOUS: ISRAEL TROOPS DEMOLISH MORE PALESTINIAN HOMES / SUICIDE BOMBERKILLS THREE/ PM SHARON HOLDS TALKS ABOUT COALITION GOVERNMENT

Record ID: 400056

  • Title: VARIOUS: ISRAEL TROOPS DEMOLISH MORE PALESTINIAN HOMES / SUICIDE BOMBERKILLS THREE/ PM SHARON HOLDS TALKS ABOUT COALITION GOVERNMENT
  • Date: 27th October 2002
  • Summary: (W4) JENIN, WEST BANK (OCTOBER 28, 2002) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. SLV ISRAELI TANK DRIVING ALONG ROAD 0.09 2. SLV TWO BOYS IN STREET WATCHING TANK/ SMALLER BOY LOOKING AT CAMERA AND RAISING ARMS IN VICTORY SALUTE 0.17 3. WIDE OF CHILDREN OUTSIDE DEMOLISHED HOUSE 0.25 4. SLV MAN TYING CURTAINS AT DEMOLISHED WINDOW 0.32 5. SL
  • Embargoed: 11th November 2002 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: JERUSALEM / JENIN, NABLUS AND RAMALLAH, WEST BANK
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Reuters ID: LVAF32BIWVQB3R8CUILDFXCH2YJ5
  • Story Text: Israeli troops have demolished homes of suspected
    Palestinian militants and shot dead a Palestinian man in the
    West Bank city of Jenin after a suicide bomber killed three
    Israeli soldiers in a West Bank Jewish settlement on Sunday.

    Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is facing dissent in
    his government as his largest coalition partner says it will
    vote against the 2003 budget unless settlement funds were
    redirected to welfare.

    Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has postponed the vote
    on his new cabinet appointments after the previous one left
    last month to avoid losing a confidence vote by lawmakers.



    The Israeli army said it demolished four houses of
    Palestinian militants in the West Bank city of Jenin overnight
    on Sunday (October 27).

    Two of the houses, Israel said, belonged to Mahmud
    Hasninand and Ashraf Asmar, the two suicide bombers who killed
    14 people when they detonated an explosive-packed car next to
    a bus in northern Israel on October 21.

    Another house was that of Abed el-Karim Awayas, a Fatah
    militant, the army said.

    Troops shot dead a Palestinian man in Jenin on Sunday. His
    family said he was unarmed and standing outside their house
    when he was shot. The army said he was a gunman.

    The father of a Palestinian suicide bomber who killed
    three Israeli soldiers near one of the biggest Jewish
    settlements in the occupied West Bank on Sunday said he did
    not know his son was a militant, but that the attack was
    motivated by images his son saw of the Israeli occupation.

    "He did it for the same reason anyone would do it," the
    father said. "He looks at the television and he sees these
    terrible pictures. I think this is the reason."
    Al-Aqsa Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian President
    Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for the
    Palestinian suicide bombing a petrol station in Ariel, one of
    the biggest Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

    Twenty other people were wounded.

    Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon faced open dissent in
    his government on Monday (October 28) as to how much
    preferential treatment Jewish settlements in the West Bank and
    Gaza Strip should get.

    The Labour party, the largest partner in Sharon's
    coalition, decided it would vote against the 2003 state budget
    on Wednesday unless settlement funds were redirected to
    welfare, a move that could lead to it leaving the coalition,
    so ushering in an early election.

    In the West Bank, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat
    postponed a vote to ratify a new Palestinian cabinet. A senior
    Palestinian official said the vote was delayed because Israeli
    refused to allow 13 lawmakers to travel to the West Bank city
    of Ramallah for the meeting.

    Arafat, under pressure at home and abroad to implement
    sweeping reforms, planned to use the session of the
    Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) to announce his new
    cabinet appointments. His cabinet resigned in September to
    avert a no-confidence motion in the reform-minded Palestinian
    Legislative Council.

    Despite a Palestinian understanding that Israel had agreed
    to let all lawmakers reach Ramallah, 10 were stopped at a Gaza
    Strip checkpoint along with the minister of supplies, and two
    were prevented from leaving Hebron, Palestinian officials
    said.

    Though they have used closed-circuit television to connect
    remote legislators to meetings in the past, Palestinian
    officials had said earlier that if all legislators could not
    travel to Ramallah, the ratification of the new cabinet would
    be cancelled.

    On Monday, Palestinian minister and chief negotiator Saeb
    Erekat criticised those who "want to sabotage and undermine
    the efforts of Palestinian institution-building and
    Palestinian reform." He said it appeared that "the Israeli
    government, high at the top, is determined to destroy the
    peace process, destroy the Palestinian authority and to resume
    occupation."
    An Israeli army spokesman said the travel prohibition on
    the 13 was imposed for security reasons but did not elaborate.

    Israel has severely restricted Palestinian travel under an
    Israeli military clampdown it says is necessary to prevent
    suicide bombings which have killed scores of Israelis since
    the start of the two-year Palestinian uprising. The
    Palestinians call the blockade collective punishment.

    CAH/


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