WEST BANK/JERUSALEM/GAZA: ISRAELI FORCES HAVE PUSHED INTO SEVERAL PALESTINIAN-RULED AREAS OF THE WEST BANK AFTER A SUICIDE BOMBER KILLED SIX PEOPLE AT A JERUSALEM BUS STOP
Record ID:
400796
WEST BANK/JERUSALEM/GAZA: ISRAELI FORCES HAVE PUSHED INTO SEVERAL PALESTINIAN-RULED AREAS OF THE WEST BANK AFTER A SUICIDE BOMBER KILLED SIX PEOPLE AT A JERUSALEM BUS STOP
- Title: WEST BANK/JERUSALEM/GAZA: ISRAELI FORCES HAVE PUSHED INTO SEVERAL PALESTINIAN-RULED AREAS OF THE WEST BANK AFTER A SUICIDE BOMBER KILLED SIX PEOPLE AT A JERUSALEM BUS STOP
- Date: 19th June 2002
- Summary: (W5) KHAN YOUNIS, GAZA (JUNE 19, 2002) (REUTERS) 1. GV (AUDIO ISRAELI HELICOPTER GUNSHIP ABOVE) MISSILE LANDING IN CITY 0.06 2. SLV AMBULANCES ARRIVING ON SITE, PEOPLE RUNNIG THROUGH STREETS 0.16 3. SLV FIRE ENGINE ON SITE 0.22 4. LV AMBULANCE ON SITE 0.31 (W4) RAFAH, GAZA STRIP (JUNE 20, 2002) (REUTERS) 5. SLV OF
- Embargoed: 4th July 2002 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: BETHLEHEM, JENIN, BETUNIA AND QALANDIA CHECKPOINT, WEST BANK/ JERUSALEM/ RAFAH AND KHAN YOUNIS, GAZA STRIP
- City:
- Country: Palestinian Territories
- Reuters ID: LVA1OFID5KH3Y8V0JT3EQTG0IUTX
- Story Text: Israeli forces have pushed into several Palestinian-ruled
areas of the West Bank seizing wanted militants, imposing curfews and shelling alleged weapons factories after a suicide bomber killed six people at a Jerusalem bus stop.
Under intense international pressure, Palestinian
President Yasser Arafat condemned the suicide attacks by
Palestinian militants but shortly afterwards his appeal to
cease violence was rebuffed by Palestinian militant groups.
Israeli helicopters fired missiles at metal foundries
in the Gaza Strip, wounding four people just hours after the
deadly suicide attack which killed six Israelis at a bus stop
on Wednesday (June 19, 2002).
The army said they were factories used to make weapons.
In the latest of what has become almost daily violence,
the the Israeli army traded heavy fire with Palestinian gunman
in the Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis.
Troops also entered the West Bank city of Bethlehem, the
adjacent Deheisheh refugee camp and Betounia, just outside
Ramallah, in the early hours of Thursday (June 20).
The army said troops carried out searches, imposed curfews
and made a number of arrests.
On Thursday, Israeli troops raided a village in the
central Gaza Strip, searched houses and seized at least 10
Palestinians before withdrawing, Palestinian security sources
said.
Israeli security sources said two soldiers were killed and
four hurt when they were attacked as they hunted for a
militant in Qalqilya. A soldier returned fire and killed a
gunman.
At least 1,403 Palestinians and 539 Israelis have been
killed since the Palestinian revolt began in September 2000
after negotiations on a Palestinian state deadlocked.
Following the latest suicide attacks, Israel has tightened
security on all checkpoints leading from West Bank and Gaza.
Long lines of cars of buses formed at checkpoints making any
travel between the Palestinian Territories and Israel
virtually impossible.
Holding pieces of bread and empty dishes, hundreds of
jobless Palestinians staged a "March of Hunger" on Thursday
blaming both Israeli army blockades and a lack of benefit from
the Palestinian Authority for their misery.
"Victims of occupation and negligence," read a large
banner at the protest attended by 1,500 Palestinians
unemployed since the Israeli military sealed off the Gaza
Strip 20 months ago.
Israel closed crossings with Gaza and the West Bank to
fight an ongoing Palestinian uprising against occupation and
to try to stop militants infiltrating the Jewish state.
At least 120,000 Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank
had jobs inside Israel before the September 2000 uprising,
which erupted shortly after peace moves stalled.
Many of the 40,000 Gazans who once worked in Israel now
cool their heels inside tents of protest erected in cities and
refugee camps around the small Mediterranean territory.
Some of the protesters held up slices of bread while
others carried dishes and spoons.
The latest Israeli military actions followed a decision to
respond to attacks on Israeli civilians by retaking and
holding territory turned over to Palestinian self-rule under
1990s interim peace deals as long as such violence continued.
That policy, different from the time-limited raids
conducted to date, was announced after an Islamic militant
blew himself up on a Jerusalem bus on Tuesday and killed 19
people, the highest death toll in a Palestinian attack in the
city since 1996.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in a speech to the
World Zionist Congress meeting in Jerusalem, again ruled out
any return to peace talks unless Palestinian violence ceased.
"This (latest bombing) was not the first terror attack in
Israel. It is another wave in 120 years of battle but this
time standing behind the terror is the Palestinian terror
authority with the support of a terror axis -- Iran, Syria and
(Osama) bin Laden," Sharon said.
The Palestinian Authority has denied such charges and says
its ability to rein in militants and carry out reforms
demanded by the United States and Israel are hampered by
Israeli army blockades in the West Bank and by frequent
military raids.
Israel did not specify after the latest attack what steps
it would take but warned earlier in the week "additional
terrorist attacks will bring about additional captures of
territory."
The new policy has alarmed some centre-left members of
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's coalition government, including
the defence and foreign ministers, who oppose any reoccupation
of territory handed to the Palestinians under accords in the
1990s.
In Gaza Palestinian President Yasser Arafat condemned
suicide attacks on Israeli civilians by Palestinian militants
and called on his people to stop them but said that he hoped
the United States will do all possible to carry out the
resolutions adopted at the Madrid conference and help create
independent Palestinian state.
"I personally, and the Palestinian Authority, are
completely against it (the attacks)," Arafat told reporters
outside his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
He cautioned that such attacks could result in Israeli
forces re-occupying Palestinian-ruled land in the West Bank
under a new policy of responding to suicide bombings by
retaking and holding such territory.
Arafat has made such appeals before, including when he
went on television to do so under intense international
pressure last December, but the suicide bombings have not
ceased.
Militant groups at the forefront of a nearly 21-month-old
uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip rebuffed Arafat's appeal to cease violence against
Israeli civilians and said such attacks would continue as long
as Israel kept killing Palestinian civilians.
The latest victim of the conflict, a woman killed in the
bus attack was buried in Jerusalem's Givat Shaul cemetery on
Thursday.
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