- Title: WEST BANK/ JERUSALEM: ISRAEL ARMY CONTINUES SEARCH FOR PALESTINIAN MILITANTS
- Date: 12th December 2003
- Summary: (U3) JENIN, WEST BANK (DECEMBER 12, 2003) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. VARIOUS OF PALESTINIANS STANDING NEAR ARMOURED PERSONNEL CARRIER (APC) NEAR HOME 0.14 2. WIDE OF APC DRIVING ALONG ROAD AND BLOWING SMOKE ONTO HOUSES, 0.45 3. SLV PALESTINIAN YOUTH CLIMBING ONTO BACK OF APC , BEING THROWN OFF VEHICLE AND RUNNING AWAY PAST CAMERA MAN 1
- Embargoed: 27th December 2003 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: JENIN, WEST BANK/ JERUSALEM
- City:
- Country: Palestinian Territories
- Reuters ID: LVABSFTMS64ALSI14KH78Y0E4VAA
- Story Text: Israeli army searchs for militants in Nablus, as
calm continues in most of Israel.
The Israeli Army conducted routine sweeps in the
West Bank town of Nablus on Friday (December 12) scouring
neighbourhoods for Palestinian militants.
Youths threw stones at Israeli vehicles as the drove
through the city, in what has become almost a daily ritual.
But despite the tensions in the West Bank, normalcy is
continuing across much of Israel in one of the longest
periods of quiet in several years.
The last suicide attack was on October 4, when a female
suicide bomber blew herself up in a Haifa restaurant
killing 21 people, among them five children.
But while Israelis adopt a cautious optimism after
almost two months of peace, smaller incidents continue to
take place between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians in the
West Bank and Gaza, disrupting an otherwise fairly peaceful
spell in the Palestinian territories as well.
On Friday, Palestinian gunmen wounded seven
ultra-Orthodox Jews in the West Bank who defied Israeli
military orders by praying at a shrine before dawn in the
West Bank city of Nablus.
Israeli security sources said one of the Jews was
critically injured when gunmen fired at their vehicle near
Joseph's Tomb -- thought by some to be the burial site of
the biblical patriarch -- as they drove away after prayers.
Despite the relative calm, tension has escalated
between the two sides over a controversial barrier
constructed to separate the West Bank from Israel.
Palestinians say the barrier, a swathe of concrete
walls, electric fences and razor wire, is a bid to annex
Palestinian terrain.
Washington has been prodding Israel to do more to
implement the "road map" since Palestinian Prime Minister
Ahmed Qurie took office and began negotiating with
militants to steer them into a formal ceasefire to
capitalise on almost two months without major violence.
The road map charts reciprocal steps, including an end
to militant violence and curbs on settlements, toward a
Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by 2005.
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