VARIOUS: PALESTINIANS CALL ISRAEL'S ACTIONS "REOCCUPATION" AS ISRAELI TROOPS SEAL OFF THE GAZA TOWN OF RAFAH AS VIOLENCE CONTINUES

Record ID: 400393

  • Title: VARIOUS: PALESTINIANS CALL ISRAEL'S ACTIONS "REOCCUPATION" AS ISRAELI TROOPS SEAL OFF THE GAZA TOWN OF RAFAH AS VIOLENCE CONTINUES
  • Date: 29th August 2001
  • Summary: (W3) JERUSALEM, (AUGUST 29, 2001) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. SLV ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER SHIMON PERES WALKING INTO CABINET MEETING 0.06 2. SLV ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER ARIEL SHARON WALKING INTO CABINET MEETING 0.15 3. WIDE OF ISRAELI CABINET MINISTERS SEATED AT MEETING 0.22 4. SCU SHIMON PERES 0.26 5. CUTAWAY CABINET MINISTER
  • Embargoed: 13th September 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BEIT JALA, RAMALLAH, NEAR NABLUS, GILO, WEST BANK / RAFAH, SOUTHERN GAZA / JERUSALEM
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Reuters ID: LVADIQRLNVCI8JR1E7I3GVM7LSFJ
  • Story Text: As violence continued in Gaza and the West Bank, the
    Israeli Cabinet has met to discuss the security situation.

    Hundreds of refugees from fighting in southern Gaza have
    moved into tents after Israeli tanks thrust deep into
    Palestinian territory, sealing off a town, and violence
    continued in the West Bank.



    Israeli tanks thrust deep into Palestinian-ruled
    territory in the Gaza Strip and sealed off a town of Rafah on
    Wednesday (August 29).

    At least three Palestinians and an Israeli were killed in
    the new surge of violence that has killed about 700 people,
    the majority of them Palestinians, in the last 11 months.

    In a show of force after an overnight shooting at one of
    its posts in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army sent tanks and
    bulldozers rumbling several kilometres (miles) into the
    southern Rafah area to seize a main road and seal off the
    town.

    Palestinian officials called the incursion a reoccupation.

    Local residents were trapped in their homes, too afraid to go
    outside because of gunfire, and troops raised the Israeli flag
    over two Palestinian strongholds.

    The seizure came barely 24 hours after Israeli forces
    raided the West Bank town of Beit Jala near Bethlehem, which
    Christians believe to be the birthplace of Jesus, to try to
    stop Palestinians from firing at Israeli apartments on the
    edge of Jerusalem.

    On Wednesday Israeli troops continued to enforce a curfew
    on Beit Jala. While occasional taxi braved the road into Beit
    Jala, the Christian enclave remained a ghost town. Residents
    sheltered in their homes, still traumatised by ongoing
    fighting between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli soldiers in
    tanks and armoured personnel carriers.

    Israeli troops re-occupied sections of Beit Jala early on
    Tuesday (August 28) to try to end months of firing on Gilo, a
    Jewish settlement which Israel terms a neighbourhood of
    Jerusalem.

    Despite the Israeli military presence in Beit Jala, gunmen
    periodically shot across a valley at Gilo and fired at least
    three mortar bombs, damaging cars and buildings.

    Israel had repeatedly warned the Palestinians against
    using Beit Jala to attack Gilo during the 11 months of
    violence
    Israel has said it would not pull its troops out of Beit
    Jala until the shooting stopped.

    Residents from Rafah refugee camp moved into a tent city
    set up to receive increasing numbers of newly-displaced
    Palestinians escaping from violence in the southern part of
    the Gaza Strip. Two deadly West Bank shootings and fighting
    near Jerusalem kept violence at boiling point.

    Palestinians buried two victims of the violence and
    Palestinian authorities said that any form of resistance to
    the Israeli incursions was legitimate.

    "Because we are sure that there are no real intentions by
    the Israeli government to withdraw from Beit Jala and from
    other regions, we here would like to say clearly that it is
    the right of Palestinians to resist the invaders and to fight
    against this occupation with all our capabilities. We will not
    yield to this new occupation and we will not make it an issue
    of negotiations", said Yasser Abd Rabbo, Palestinian Minister
    of Information at news conference.

    Palestinians defied Israeli troops occupying parts of an
    Arab town outside Jerusalem by firing two mortar bombs at the
    Jewish settlement of Gilo from the neighbouring Palestinian
    town of Beit Jala , causing damage but no deaths or injuries.

    Police said one of the mortar bombs fired on Wednesday slammed
    into a roof of an apartment building, wrecking solar water
    heaters but causing no injuries. The other exploded in an
    empty field.

    Israel has said Palestinian violence against Israelis
    justified its incursions into Palestinian territory.

    Jerusalem mayor, Ehud Olmert, said Israels seizure of Beit
    Jala was not a long-term measure but was instead intended to
    stop the firing on Gilo.

    "We are not going to take over any of the land. We are just
    try to stop the terrorists that are aiming at the heads of my
    children in Gilo, that's it. I think we have to stop it. I
    can't imagine that any mother, in London or New York, will
    have to go through what the mothers in Gilo have (had) to go
    through in the last few months," said Ehud Olmert.

    But the move clearly has not stopped the Palestinian
    militants. On Wednesday morning an Israeli truck driver was
    shot dead on a road near the Palestinian city of Nablus.







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