VARIOUS: PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT ARAFAT BLAMES ISRAEL FOR ESCALATION OF VIOLENCE IN WEST BANK AND GAZA
Record ID:
400371
VARIOUS: PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT ARAFAT BLAMES ISRAEL FOR ESCALATION OF VIOLENCE IN WEST BANK AND GAZA
- Title: VARIOUS: PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT ARAFAT BLAMES ISRAEL FOR ESCALATION OF VIOLENCE IN WEST BANK AND GAZA
- Date: 27th November 2002
- Summary: (W5)JENIN, WEST BANK (NOVEMBER 27, 2002) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. WIDE OF THOUSANDS WALKING IN FUNERAL MARCH FOR PALESTINIAN MILITANTS , CHANTING, WAVING FLAGS IN STREETS 0.07 2. WIDE OF MOURNERS CARRYING BODIES OF ALA'A SABBAGH OF THE AL-AQSA MARTYRS BRIGADES AND IMAD NASHARTI OF ISLAMIC MILITANT GROUP HAMAS 0.15 3. SMV MAN FIRING DURING
- Embargoed: 12th December 2002 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: JENIN AND RAMALLAH, WEST BANK/ GAZA/ JERUSALEM
- City:
- Country: Palestinian Territories
- Reuters ID: LVA3BEIRXLUJ1VGGIBICQOVNKRSU
- Story Text: Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has said Israel's
government was to blame for an escalation of violence in the
region, after three Palestinian militants were killed in the
West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Months before they were killed
in what appeared to be an Israeli missile strike, two of the
militants vowed to continue their struggle until the end of
the Israeli occupation.
Thousands of mourners on Wednesday (November 27)
attended the funerals of Ala'a Sabbagh of the al-Aqsa Martyrs
Brigades and Imad Nasharti of the Islamic militant group Hamas
who were killed in an explosion in Jenin in the northern West
Bank Tuesday (November 26).
The Israeli army declined official comment and a military
source told Reuters: "It wasn't the Israel Defence Forces."
But a senior Israeli security source said this did not
rule out the possibility that a non-military Israeli security
service such as Shin Bet could have been behind the blast.
Family and friends gathered at the hospital to mourn the
deaths of the militants who were then carried through the
streets by hundreds of mourners. Gunshots were fired in the
air in sign of mourning.
The deaths of Ala'a Sabbagh of the al-Aqsa Martyrs
Brigades and Imad Nasharti of the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam
brigades, the military wing of the fundamentalist Islamic
group Hamas, raised the spectre of a sharp rise in
Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Palestinian security sources said both men, Jenin area
commanders for their respective groups, had been wanted by
Israeli security forces for months.
Witnesses in the Jenin camp told Reuters they saw an
Israeli F-16 warplane fire a missile at a friend's house where
Sabbagh and Nasharti had been hiding.
The body of one of the militants was torn to pieces in the
night-time explosion.
A Reuters correspondent saw an F-16 flying overhead at the
time and said it released a flare. But he did not see the
aircraft fire any missiles.
The Israeli military and the Shin Bet security service
have killed dozens of senior militants in operations
Palestinians have branded state-sponsored assassination and
many countries have condemned.
Israel calls the track-and-kill attacks self-defence in
the face of suicide bombings in which dozens of its citizens
have died.
Though both men had been wanted by Israel for months, they
were recently interviewed by Reuters Television .
"We went along this path knowing what the consequences
are. We become martyrs or we are detained by Israel. But we
ask God for martyrdom," said Ala Sabbagh of the al-Aqsa
martyrs brigades.
The deaths of the two men could give Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon a boost among members of his right-wing Likud party, a
day before they vote in a leadership election in which he is
being challenged by hawkish Foreign Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu.
And in the latest violence, a Palestinian militant was
killed when the explosives-laden car he was driving blew up as
it headed towards an Israeli military post in the Gaza Strip
Wednesday (November 27).
Palestinian fire fighters hosed down the skeleton of what
was a vehicle as heavy smoke filled the District Coordinating
Office compound.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a
militant group violently opposed to Israel's existence,
claimed responsibility for the attempted attack, which caused
no casualties other than the driver.
Witnesses said the driver sped past a Palestinian
checkpoint on the way to the Erez crossing point with Israel,
and that Israeli troops guarding the District Coordinating
Office (DCO) there fired at him.
The car blew up just past the DCO gates, setting fire to
Palestinian security liaison buildings which have been
unmanned since Israel, battling a two-year-old Palestinian
uprising for independence, evicted the staffers last
September.
Speaking in Ramallah, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat
blamed Israel for escalating the situation.
"What is going not only in Bethlehem or Jenin, what is
going on everywhere, they are making every day , every night
they are escalating the military aggression against our
cities, against our towns, against our refugee camps, and they
have killed one of the most important responsible in UNRWA,
Iain Hook., who has been considered as one of our martyrs, and
I have offered the medal of Jerusalem to his family, through
mister consul," Arafat said after meeting a Dutch delegation.
Hook, a worker for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency aiding
Palestinian refugees, was shot by an Israeli soldier on Friday
during a skirmish with Palestinian gunmen in the Jenin refugee
camp in the West Bank.
U.N. officials said Israeli forces delayed an ambulance
summoned to evacuate Hook and he died before reaching a
hospital. The army said a military ambulance was sent to aid
Hook but he was dead when it arrived.
rz/jrc
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