VARIOUS: ISRAEL CONTINUES TO CARRY OUT POLICY OF DEMOLITION AND DEPORTATION OF RELATIVES OF SUSPECTED PALESTINIAN MILITANTS

Record ID: 400597

  • Title: VARIOUS: ISRAEL CONTINUES TO CARRY OUT POLICY OF DEMOLITION AND DEPORTATION OF RELATIVES OF SUSPECTED PALESTINIAN MILITANTS
  • Date: 14th August 2002
  • Summary: (U2) BETHLEHEM, WEST BANK (AUGUST 13, 2002) (REUTERS) FOR DETAILED SHOTLIST SHOTS 1 - 9 SEE PROD 10451/02 1. SLV MILITARY TRUCK DRIVING THROUGH STREETS; TRUCK DRIVING THROUGH ALLEYWAYS 2. TROOPS EVACUATING FAMILY MEMBERS 3. WIDE OF CITY 4. SLV HOME ABOUT TO BE BLOWN UP; SLV EXPLOSION; SLV SITE OF EXPLOSION; SLV AREA OF
  • Embargoed: 29th August 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BETHLEHEM, BEIT-EL AND RAMALLAH, WEST BANK
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Reuters ID: LVA1UJPET26QD1WXZEK4MBXEV5WQ
  • Story Text: Israel has continued to carry out its policy of
    demolition and deportation of relatives of suspected
    militants, in its new tactic to deter would-be suicide
    bombers.

    Three relatives of Palestinian militants wanted by
    Israel faced expulsion from the West Bank to Gaza on
    Tuesday (August 13, 2002) pending a last-ditch appeal
    to Israel's Supreme Court
    against an edict condemned by human rights groups.

    An Israeli military court late on Monday approved the
    army's order to deport two men and a woman under a new Israeli
    tactic aimed at deterring suicide bombers by punishing their
    families.

    Troops also blew up the family homes of a suicide bomber
    and a gunman in the West Bank early on Tuesday as relatives
    watched.

    Palestinian officials and human rights activists denounced
    both tactics as collective punishment, saying they would
    undermine efforts to end 22 months of bloodshed.

    The policy reflects growing Israeli public frustration
    about continued suicide bombings in the Jewish state despite
    the army's seizure of most major Palestinian-ruled towns and
    cities in recent weeks.

    "This new Israeli escalation, this new Israeli policy is a
    dangerous policy and it is not going to lead anywhere apart
    from escalating the violence and escalating the instability in
    the whole region. And we urge the security council and the
    quartet to interfere and to move quickly to stop these steps
    because these steps are dangerous and these steps are going to
    lead to more violence," Nabil Abu-Rdaineh, Senior Advisor to
    Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said.

    The three detained Palestinians who were expected to be
    expelled had until midday to file their petition to the
    Supreme Court or be deported immediately to the fenced-in Gaza
    Strip, a Justice Ministry spokesman said.

    The expulsions would be the first since a Palestinian
    uprising against Israeli occupation erupted in September 2000.

    At least 1,498 Palestinians and 587 Israelis have been killed.

    Two of the Palestinians, Kifah and Intisar Ajouri, are
    the brother and sister of Ali Ajouri, who is accused by Israel
    of sending two suicide bombers to a foreign workers'
    neighbourhood in Tel Aviv last month in an attack that killed
    five people.

    Israel says the third deportee, Abed Nassar Asida, is the
    brother of a member of the Islamic militant Hamas group who
    coordinated two shooting attacks outside the Jewish settlement
    of Emmanuel in December and July that left at least 17 dead.

    Military prosecutors have said the three helped their
    brothers plan the attacks.

    The crackdown on militants' families coincided with a
    recent poll showing a slide in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's
    popularity in Israel against the backdrop of continued
    bombings.

    Israel hopes militants will realise their loved ones will
    suffer as a result of attacks and have second thoughts.

    "The deportation orders are illegal, immoral and
    especially cruel," the Association for Civil Rights in Israel
    and the Israeli Center for the Protection of Individual Rights
    said in a joint statement.

    In 1992, Israel's Supreme Court upheld the government's
    banishment of 415 Palestinians to Lebanon in a crackdown on
    Islamic fundamentalist groups during the first Palestinian
    uprising between 1987 and 1993.

    Israel faced harsh international censure for the
    expulsions. Most of the Palestinians were allowed back within
    a year.

    Israel has also faced growing international criticism for
    demolishing militants' family homes. The army destroyed the
    homes of Mohammed Bassat in the town of Dahariye near Hebron
    and Issa Badiya in Doha village, near Bethlehem, on Tuesday.

    Bassat opened fire in the Israeli town of Beersheba in
    October last year, killing one Israeli soldier, before he was
    shot dead. Badiya blew himself up in Rishon Letzion, near Tel
    Aviv in May, killing two and wounding 36.

    At a meeting in the Gaza Strip on Monday of Palestinian
    factions striving to forge a unified leadership, the militant
    Hamas group vowed to continue strikes in Israel.


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