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IDF imposes restrictions in West Bank after attacks
The government has decided on a series of restricting measures on the West Bank Palestinian population in response to Sunday's drive-by shootings attack where three Israeli civilians were killed and six were wounded.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who is currently staying at his Sycamore Ranch, spoke with senior defense officials by telephone Sunday night to discuss Israel's response and decided to reimpose various restrictions on Palestinian traffic in the West Bank that had recently been lifted. The Israel Defense Forces will resume its encirclement of Hebron and Bethlehem, reinstate dismantled checkpoints around Hebron, Bethlehem and Ramallah and forbid private Palestinian cars to travel certain roads.
Israel also suspended security talks with the Palestinian Authority in protest. A security source slammed the PA as having no leadership, saying Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is working in a vacuum and that no force can make him fight terror, Israel Radio reported.
The suspension of contacts is temporary, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev. "In Israel, we have no desire to return to a reality of daily attacks against Israeli civilians," Regev said. "We want to send a very strong and sharp message to the Palestinians, and the temporary suspension of talks is that message."
The IDF will also restrict the traffic of private Palestinian cars on the Route 60 section between Adam Square in the Samaria and the Tapuah junction, as well as the road between Hebron and Jerusalem.
In addition, the IDF will beef up its forces in the southern West Bank and continue its large-scale arrest operations. It will also fortify some of the hitchhiking posts along major West Bank roads to protect hitchhikers from drive-by shootings such as Sunday's. Nevertheless, IDF officers warned, additional attacks on the roads are possible.
More
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/635444.html
Israel Defense Forces troops arrested 18 wanted Palestinian militants in a series of pre-dawn raids across the West Bank on Monday.
Forces arrested five militants in the Hebron region, ten in the Jenin area, and another three in Beitunya, southwest of Ramallah.
Palestinians opened fire on paratroopers operating in the Balata refugee camp on the outskirts of the city of Nablus. There were no casualties in the incident.
Undercover forces kill Islamic Jihad leader
On Sunday, the Border Police's undercover unit killed a senior regional Islamic Jihad operative near Jenin.
The incident took place less than an hour after three Israelis were killed by Palestinian gunmen in Gush Etzion, but there was no connection between the two incidents.
According to IDF sources, the undercover troops were on a routine mission in the area between Jenin and Qabatiyah.
Israeli forces are continuing occasional missions in the area despite the fact that four settlements there were evacuated during the disengagement.
The member of the Jihad's armed wing, identified as 26-year-old Nihad Abu-Gheinem, happened to pass through the area by chance, military sources said. He noticed the military vehicle in which the undercover troops were sitting and fired in its direction with his pistol.
No one was wounded but the troops returned fire, killing Abu-Gheinem.
Palestinian sources said, however, that the Israeli operatives spotted Abu-Gheinem and another man in a car and blocked their way with their vehicle. There was then an exchange of fire, they said, during which Abu-Gheinem was killed.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/635597.html
The Palestinian Authority prevented 17 terror attacks against Israel during its first month of self-rule in the Gaza Strip, according to statistics released Saturday night by the Palestinian Interior Ministry, which is responsible for security concerns.
In that time, the PA has also found 75 explosives, confiscated 15 Qassam rockets and halted seven attempts to smuggle goods across the Egyptian border, according to the report, which documents the PA's struggle against terror in Gaza since Israel withdrew from the Strip.
The news comes on the heels of a PA request to Israel not to prevent Hamas from participating in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections, lest this serve to strengthen Hamas.
"Don't interfere with our elections," Palestinian Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat told Vice Premier Shimon Peres at a meeting on Friday. "Leave it to us. Any intervention of yours only strengthens Hamas. You believe you are weakening it, but the result is the opposite."
Erekat said the elections will take place in January, in accordance with the Israeli-Palestinian interim agreement from 1995, which established the political framework for the PA, and prohibited the participation of parties "if such candidates, parties, or coalitions commit or advocate racism or pursue the implementation of their aims by unlawful or nondemocratic means."
The Israeli position views the participation of Hamas in the election as a violation of this clause, because Hamas carries out terror attacks and its covenant calls explicitly for the destruction of Israel.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom have over the past weeks been conducting an international campaign to prevent Hamas participation in the elections for the PLC. Sharon has warned that if Hamas takes part in the elections, Israel will create difficulties for the holding of elections in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
At the same time, the PA is planning to hold its fourth round of elections for the local authorities on December 15. Over the weekend, the Palestinian Ministry of Local Government announced the upcoming round of elections in 44 local authorities, including the West Bank's large municipalities of Ramallah, Hebron, Nablus and Jenin. Apart from four small local authorities, the coming elections will not include the Gaza Strip, where there is broad support for Hamas.
A political source expressed his opinion over the weekend that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas would receive "significant reinforcement," in his meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington on Thursday. In a series of messages to Israel during the past week, the U.S. has conveyed the importance it sees in strengthening Abbas.
Meanwhile, the PA Interior Ministry announced over the weekend that Russian officers had arrived to assist with the training of Palestinian security forces.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/635068.html
Israel also suspended security talks with the Palestinian Authority in protest. A security source slammed the PA as having no leadership, saying Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is working in a vacuum and that no force can make him fight terror, Israel Radio reported.
The suspension of contacts is temporary, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev. "In Israel, we have no desire to return to a reality of daily attacks against Israeli civilians," Regev said. "We want to send a very strong and sharp message to the Palestinians, and the temporary suspension of talks is that message."
The IDF will also restrict the traffic of private Palestinian cars on the Route 60 section between Adam Square in the Samaria and the Tapuah junction, as well as the road between Hebron and Jerusalem.
In addition, the IDF will beef up its forces in the southern West Bank and continue its large-scale arrest operations. It will also fortify some of the hitchhiking posts along major West Bank roads to protect hitchhikers from drive-by shootings such as Sunday's. Nevertheless, IDF officers warned, additional attacks on the roads are possible.
More
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/635444.html
Israel Defense Forces troops arrested 18 wanted Palestinian militants in a series of pre-dawn raids across the West Bank on Monday.
Forces arrested five militants in the Hebron region, ten in the Jenin area, and another three in Beitunya, southwest of Ramallah.
Palestinians opened fire on paratroopers operating in the Balata refugee camp on the outskirts of the city of Nablus. There were no casualties in the incident.
Undercover forces kill Islamic Jihad leader
On Sunday, the Border Police's undercover unit killed a senior regional Islamic Jihad operative near Jenin.
The incident took place less than an hour after three Israelis were killed by Palestinian gunmen in Gush Etzion, but there was no connection between the two incidents.
According to IDF sources, the undercover troops were on a routine mission in the area between Jenin and Qabatiyah.
Israeli forces are continuing occasional missions in the area despite the fact that four settlements there were evacuated during the disengagement.
The member of the Jihad's armed wing, identified as 26-year-old Nihad Abu-Gheinem, happened to pass through the area by chance, military sources said. He noticed the military vehicle in which the undercover troops were sitting and fired in its direction with his pistol.
No one was wounded but the troops returned fire, killing Abu-Gheinem.
Palestinian sources said, however, that the Israeli operatives spotted Abu-Gheinem and another man in a car and blocked their way with their vehicle. There was then an exchange of fire, they said, during which Abu-Gheinem was killed.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/635597.html
The Palestinian Authority prevented 17 terror attacks against Israel during its first month of self-rule in the Gaza Strip, according to statistics released Saturday night by the Palestinian Interior Ministry, which is responsible for security concerns.
In that time, the PA has also found 75 explosives, confiscated 15 Qassam rockets and halted seven attempts to smuggle goods across the Egyptian border, according to the report, which documents the PA's struggle against terror in Gaza since Israel withdrew from the Strip.
The news comes on the heels of a PA request to Israel not to prevent Hamas from participating in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections, lest this serve to strengthen Hamas.
"Don't interfere with our elections," Palestinian Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat told Vice Premier Shimon Peres at a meeting on Friday. "Leave it to us. Any intervention of yours only strengthens Hamas. You believe you are weakening it, but the result is the opposite."
Erekat said the elections will take place in January, in accordance with the Israeli-Palestinian interim agreement from 1995, which established the political framework for the PA, and prohibited the participation of parties "if such candidates, parties, or coalitions commit or advocate racism or pursue the implementation of their aims by unlawful or nondemocratic means."
The Israeli position views the participation of Hamas in the election as a violation of this clause, because Hamas carries out terror attacks and its covenant calls explicitly for the destruction of Israel.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom have over the past weeks been conducting an international campaign to prevent Hamas participation in the elections for the PLC. Sharon has warned that if Hamas takes part in the elections, Israel will create difficulties for the holding of elections in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
At the same time, the PA is planning to hold its fourth round of elections for the local authorities on December 15. Over the weekend, the Palestinian Ministry of Local Government announced the upcoming round of elections in 44 local authorities, including the West Bank's large municipalities of Ramallah, Hebron, Nablus and Jenin. Apart from four small local authorities, the coming elections will not include the Gaza Strip, where there is broad support for Hamas.
A political source expressed his opinion over the weekend that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas would receive "significant reinforcement," in his meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington on Thursday. In a series of messages to Israel during the past week, the U.S. has conveyed the importance it sees in strengthening Abbas.
Meanwhile, the PA Interior Ministry announced over the weekend that Russian officers had arrived to assist with the training of Palestinian security forces.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/635068.html
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Israel says the harsh measures were re-imposed on Monday in response to the killing of three Israelis and has halted all communications with the Palestinian Authority, Aljazeera learned.
The Israeli army killed a Palestinian in the West Bank and injured a bystander on Sunday.
The re-imposition of travel restrictions in the West Bank and the resumption of military incursions were part of the decisions taken at high-level meetings led by Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz.
Aljazeera.net's reporter in the West Bank, Khalid Amayreh, said an anonymous caller phoning a western news agency in Gaza City claimed that Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades carried out the attack as a reprisal for the recent killing by the Israeli army of more than 10 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank.
However, a spokesman for the Brigades in the West Bank later denied any connection to the incident.
An Israeli army source quoted by the Ha'aretz newspaper said that it was more likely that Hamas, not Fatah, carried out the ambush in retaliation for the killing of several Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip in September.
Hamas said it remained committed to a de facto ceasefire reached between Israel and the PA earlier this year.
Israelis, Palestinian killed
The three Israelis were killed in two drive-by shootings. The first killed two Israelis, Matat Adler, 21, and Kineret Mandel, 23, at a bus stop near Jewish settlements.
The second killed a 15-year-old Israeli, Oz Ben Meir, in another area.
Also on Sunday, Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian and wounded a bystander in the northern West Bank town of Jenin.
Palestinian hospital officials said Nihad Abu Ghanim, 27, died after being shot in the head, abdomen and chest.
A witness said two Israeli army Jeeps drove up to Abu Ghanim while he was driving down the road and shot him.
The Israeli army, however, said Abu Ghanim was killed when its forces spotted an armed Palestinian. The man shot at them and they returned fire, killing him, the army said.
Abu Ghanim was an Islamic Jihad activist.
Freedom of movement
At a late-night meeting in Tel Aviv with the military's top brass, Mofaz decided on a series of measures to clamp down on Palestinians in the West Bank, one of which was to ban private Palestinian vehicles from intercity roads throughout the West Bank.
"We (Israel) will change the policy of how they (Palestinians)use the roads - we will demand that they use public transport rather than private cars," an Israeli defence establishment source told AFP, saying the move would primarily affect the southern part of the West Bank.
The Israeli army would also step up military operations and encircle towns and villages in the southern West Bank, "largely around Bethlehem and Hebron" Mofaz said, without giving further details.
Exits from Bethlehem and Hebron will be blocked, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to speak to reporters.
Re-imposing restrictions
Israel says it has re-imposed the restrictions and reversed a relaxing of restrictions implemented since the beginning of the Muslim month of Ramadan two weeks ago, restoring limitations that crippled the Palestinian economy and caused widespread hardships.
"Israel removed roadblocks and made a number of humanitarian gestures to ease up on the Palestinians," said David Baker, an official in the Israeli prime minister's office.
The officials said the new measures would be in effect for the long term.
Palestinian taxi and bus drivers told Aljazeera.net that even unpaved mountainous paths had been closed by army bulldozers, forcing thousands of students, teachers, and civil servants to stay away from their institutions and places of work.
Walid al-Umari, director of Aljazeera's office in Palestine, commenting from Ram Allah, said the Israeli authorities had decided to bring back the situation in the Palestinian territories to the way it was two years ago.
In addition, Israel has launched a vast campaign, arresting 19 Palestinians, mostly Islamic Jihad activists, in the Yabad area in Jenin, Betunia town near Ram Allah, and in Hebron, he said.
Israel is using the opportunity to press Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas to disarm resistance groups ahead of his meeting with US President George Bush.
Government spokesman Avi Pazner said: "What has happened shows the need to disarm these organisations, something which he (Abbas) has not done until now," Pazner told AFP.
"It will be difficult for him to explain [to Bush] why he has not done this."
PA condemnation
Abbas has rejected the pressure to disarm the groups, saying that it would result in civil war and that he prefers negotiations since the truce agreed upon in Cairo in February has proven to be successful.
Senior Palestinian officials criticised the roadside attacks, but also condemned the killing of the Jenin armed resistance leader.
"These shootings tend to undermine our efforts to revive the peace process and serves neither the interests of the Palestinians nor the Israelis," senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erikat told Reuters.
"We will exert maximum efforts in order to sustain the cessation of violence," he said.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/5AFAC07D-9A9C-4293-9680-B49E13629D01.htm
By Matt Spetalnick
Israel suspended all security contacts with the Palestinians and sealed off biblical Bethlehem in a West Bank clampdown on Monday after gunmen killed three settlers in the deadliest attack on Israelis in months.
The flare-up on Sunday in the occupied West Bank, including Israel's killing of a senior Islamic militant, came a month after the Jewish state completed its pullout from the Gaza Strip to end 38 years of military rule.
The latest fighting stirred new doubts about an already shaky eight-month-old ceasefire and undermined hopes the Gaza pullout would spur renewed peacemaking.
Israel also raised the prospect that a long-delayed Israeli-Palestinian summit, which had been expected in late October or early November after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas returns from a White House visit, could be postponed again.
Demanding a Palestinian crackdown on militants, Israel said it was halting all security contacts with the Palestinian Authority, which had been expanded in recent months with coordination of the pullout from the Gaza Strip.
The army set up roadblocks, some recently dismantled, around the West Bank town of Bethlehem, an area under Palestinian security control from which Sunday's attackers were thought to have come. Residents were allowed in and out only on foot.
Troops also closed the main entrance to the neighboring West Bank city of Hebron and imposed closures near Ramallah.
In a reinstatement of restrictions eased since a February truce, Palestinian cars were banned from certain roads.
The army also arrested 19 suspected militants in raids in the territory, where troops have kept most major towns and cities encircled during a five-year-old Palestinian uprising.
"As a result of yesterday's attacks we are taking defensive action," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said. "There is a temporary suspension of contacts between the Defense Ministry and military personnel and Palestinian counterparts."
Security talks represent the bulk of contacts between the sides and have recently dealt with such key issues as control of border crossings and Palestinian prisoner releases.
Erekat said the clampdown would only make matters worse. "It is very unfortunate because we should not allow such incidents to deter and undermine the peace process," he told Reuters.
SHIFTING FOCUS
Analysts had predicted militants would shift focus to the West Bank following Israel's removal of all 8,500 settlers from Gaza. Sharon has vowed never to cede major settlement blocs in the West Bank, where 245,000 settlers live.
An armed group in Abbas's Fatah faction claimed the two attacks outside the Gush Etzion settlement bloc and Eli settlement, saying it was avenging the killings of militants.
The settlers killed in the Gush Etzion attack -- two women, aged 21 and 23, and a 15-year-old youth -- were buried on Monday. Two settlers were wounded in the second ambush.
The ambushes could embarrass Abbas before talks with U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday. Abbas has been under U.S. and Israeli pressure to rein in and disarm militants.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Pelmor said the timing of a Sharon-Abbas summit, twice delayed this month, would depend on the impact of Israel's new West Bank measures and on what action the Palestinian Authority takes.
Sunday's attack was the deadliest for Israelis since July, when a suicide bomber killed five people in an Israeli town.
It was the worst single day of violence since August 24 when five Palestinians were killed in a West Bank raid by Israeli troops and a British Jew was stabbed to death by a Palestinian.
Palestinian officials denounced Sunday's roadside shootings but also condemned the killing of an Islamic Jihad leader, who had opened fire on troops on patrol in the West Bank.
Militants entered into a truce earlier this year at Abbas's behest. The deal has greatly reduced but not halted violence.
Palestinians want Gaza and the West Bank, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, for a future state.
(Additional reporting by Jonathan Saul in Jerusalem, Wafa Amr in Ramallah and Saed Ayyad in Bethlehem)