WEST BANK: THE ISRAELI ARMY HAS SET UP ROADBLOCKS CUTTING THE GAZA STRIP INTO THREE SECTORS/A PALESTINIAN MILITANT DIED WHEN HIS CAR EXPLODED

Record ID: 400811

  • Title: WEST BANK: THE ISRAELI ARMY HAS SET UP ROADBLOCKS CUTTING THE GAZA STRIP INTO THREE SECTORS/A PALESTINIAN MILITANT DIED WHEN HIS CAR EXPLODED
  • Date: 19th February 2003
  • Summary: (U4) GAZA (FEBRUARY 20, 2003) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. LV OF PALESTINIANS RUNNING NEAR BEACH AND THEN HIDING AT SOUND OF GUNFIRE FROM ISRAELI TROOPS 0.09 2. SV PALESTINIANS HIDING BEHIND SHRUBBERY 0.14 3. SLV MAN HIDING BEHIND STRUCTURE 0.17 4. SLV OF TERRAIN NEARBY 0.21 5. LV TRAFFIC JAM AT CHECKPOINT 0.27 6. LV PE
  • Embargoed: 6th March 2003 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: GAZA/ JENIN, WEST BANK
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Reuters ID: LVA2SMGHNPNQZ7LDWLTLL4F624MQ
  • Story Text: The Israeli army has set up roadblocks cutting the Gaza
    Strip into three sectors and curtailing Palestinian movement
    between them.

    A day earlier a militant from the Palestinian Al-Aqsa
    Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian President Yasser
    Arafat's Fatah faction, died in a car explosion in Jenin. The
    cause of the blast was unclear.



    Their heads bent against the ocean spray, Palestinians
    on Thursday (February 20) trudged along a wind-swept beach to
    detour Israeli road checkpoints that severed the Gaza Strip
    after rockets fired by militants hit a town in southern
    Israel.

    Israel called its decision to slice the Gaza Strip into
    three a security move, aimed at stopping rocket attacks.

    Palestinians said on Thursday the travel restrictions were
    humiliating and only stoked anti-Israeli feeling and violence.

    "If the occupation continues, the military attacks will
    continue, and the closure does not help and the people will
    react," said Gaza resident Abu Hassan.

    Some women carried their children as waves came crashing
    in. Others took a ride on a donkey cart, a cottage industry
    that flourishes whenever Israeli forces close roads.

    This time, the travel clampdown was imposed after
    rudimentary Qassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip rained
    down on the southern Israeli town of Sderot on Wednesday
    (February 19), wounding three people.

    The rocket attack followed Israel's killing of 11
    Palestinians, including two gunmen and four security officers,
    during military raids on workshops suspected of manufacturing
    the weapons.

    On Wednesday a a Palestinian militant associated with
    President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction died when the car he
    was in exploded in the West Bank city of Jenin.

    The cause of the blast, which also wounded three other
    men, was unclear, but was said to bear the hallmarks of an
    undercover Israeli killing.

    At least 26 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli
    forces since militants belonging to the fundamentalist Islamic
    group Hamas blew up an Israeli army tank in the Gaza Strip on
    Saturday (February 15), killing its four crewmen.

    The surge of violence threatens new efforts to arrange a
    ceasefire in almost 29 months of fighting since the
    Palestinians began an uprising for statehood in September 2000
    after peace negotiations stalled.

    While the U.S. State Department has voiced concern at the
    latest bloodshed, it has also expressed its understanding of
    what it said was Israel's need "to take legitimate
    anti-terrorist actions".


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