MIDDLE EAST: ISRAELI ARMOURED VEHICLES POUR IN HEBRON IN FIRST SIGN OF RETALIATION FOR SABBATH AMBUSH OF JEWISH SETTLERS THAT KILLED 12 ISRAELIS
Record ID:
400366
MIDDLE EAST: ISRAELI ARMOURED VEHICLES POUR IN HEBRON IN FIRST SIGN OF RETALIATION FOR SABBATH AMBUSH OF JEWISH SETTLERS THAT KILLED 12 ISRAELIS
- Title: MIDDLE EAST: ISRAELI ARMOURED VEHICLES POUR IN HEBRON IN FIRST SIGN OF RETALIATION FOR SABBATH AMBUSH OF JEWISH SETTLERS THAT KILLED 12 ISRAELIS
- Date: 16th November 2002
- Summary: (EU) HEBRON, WEST BANK (NOVEMBER 16, 2002) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) (NIGHTSHOTS) 1. MV: ISRAELI SOLDIERS DISMOUNTING FROM ONE APC (ARMOURED PERSONNEL CARRIER) AND TAKING UP POSITION BEHIND ANOTHER 0.08 2. PAN: ISRAELI SOLDIERS TAKING UP POSITIONS ON STREET CORNERS 0.14 3. MV: APCS SITTING MOTIONLESS IN STREET 0.18 4. SV: SO
- Embargoed: 1st December 2002 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: HEBRON, WEST BANK / JERUSALEM / GAZA CITY, GAZA
- City:
- Country: Palestinian Territories
- Reuters ID: LVA6H7FOC0Q69HVFC8ZP5TQ0KMH0
- Story Text: Israeli armoured vehicles have poured into Hebron in
the first sign of Israeli retaliation for a Sabbath ambush of
Jewish settlers in Hebron that killed 12 Israelis. Israeli
Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attack,
calling it a "despicable crime."
Meanwhile a group of several hundred Jewish settlers has
held a rally to demanding revenge for the slayings.
Witnesses said the armoured vehicles entered Hebron
from many directions shortly after nightfall on Saturday
(November 16).
Some took up positions at road junctions and troops
emerged onto the streets, while other Israeli soldiers manned
machineguns on top of the vehicles.
In addition to a number of armoured personnel carriers the
witnesses saw one tank rumble into Hebron.
It was not clear whether any other tanks had entered the
city, home to about 450 Jewish settlers who live in heavily
guarded enclaves alongside 130,000 Palestinians.
Israeli security sources said the army was implementing a
decision to return to areas it left last month in a partial
pullout from Hebron. It had previously reoccupied the city in
efforts to end a two-year-old Palestinian uprising.
The move into Hebron followed the deadliest attack in the
West Bank city since the start of the Palestinian uprising two
years ago.
Settlers were ambushed as they returned to the settlement
of Kiryat Arba after Sabbath prayers on Friday (November 15).
Settler security and soldiers who rushed to the aid of the
settlers were cut down by heavy gunfire along the narrow route
between the Palestinian city and Kiryat Arba that Israelis
call "Worshippers Way."
The Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility for the
attack which killed 12 Israelis, saying it was payback for
Israel's killing of one of its military leaders a week ago.
Three Palestinian gunmen were killed in the gunbattle with
Israeli security forces.
Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the
attack, calling it a "despicable crime" and said he would
expect support from the international community.
"We expect the international community to support Israel's
right, and obligation, to take vigorous action against terror
and the regimes that back it. We expect the international
community not to suffice, not to do only verbal condemnations
but we expect them to support the strong action that Israel
must take to defend the lives of its citizens. This is the
right of self-defence that any civilised country holds for
itself," he told reporters attending a news conference at the
Foreign Ministry.
But in Gaza City, several masked gunmen took to the
streets to rejoice the deaths of the Israeli soldiers.
At the heart of the demonstration about a dozen masked men
in balaclavas held their assault rifles aloft, firing shots
and vowing to take revenge over the killings of senior Islamic
Jihad figures over the course of the past two weeks.
"This is in support of our operations and our martyrs the
blood of our people that has been spilt during the incursions
by the enemy which has killed thousands of our people," said
the leader of Islamic Jihad in the occupied territories,
Abdallah Shemi.
Several demonstrators also said the 'al Quds Brigades',
the militant wing of Islamic Jihad was working on another
action of revenge.
At dawn on Saturday (November 16) soldiers rounded up
about 40 Palestinians and loaded them blindfolded onto buses
and demolished the home of one of the gunmen's relatives in
Hebron, the West Bank city that is home to Palestinian and
Jewish extremists.
The 450 Jewish settlers who make their home in the
Palestinian city, which was divided into Israeli and
Palestinian-controlled sectors in an interim peace deal in
1997, are considered among the most extreme in the West Bank.
Settlers living on occupied land Palestinians want for an
independent state have been frequent targets during an
uprising in which at least 1,662 Palestinians and 639 Israelis
have been killed.
Jonathan Stern, a resident of Hebron said: "I think the
Palestinians definitely have reasons to worry about the
response of the settlers. And of the army of course."
Later on Saturday night hundreds of right wing settlers
demonstrated near Hebron, calling for revenge.
"The role of the Israeli Army is to avenge this blood",
shouted right wing Parliament member Beni Alon to a crowd
chanting "revenge, revenge".
Earlier several hundred settlers took to the streets
outside the Kiryat Arba settlement next to Hebron, threw
stones at the windows of Palestinians' homes and smashed car
windows, shouting: "Arabs, leave here and go away".
The threat of vigilante-style retribution by settlers
living on occupied land in the West Bank raised the spectre of
another bloody round in the generations-old conflict between
Arabs and Jews in a city holy to both.
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