Israel’s security cabinet on Wednesday extended the policy of assassinating and kidnapping Palestinian Intifada activists, while Israeli forces shelling Hebron were reinforced along the line with the Occupied Territories.
According to Haaretz, the cabinet decision also provided for a sharper crackdown on Palestinians illegally "infiltrating" Israel, as well as Israelis who employ and shelter them.
Israel Radio reported that during the cabinet session an argument erupted between cabinet ministers Ephraim Sneh of the Labor Party and Shlomo Benizri of the ultraconservative religious Shas Party.
"There are ministers who want to do as little as possible in fighting Palestinian violence," Benizri told the ministers.
Sneh, a reserve army brigadier general who lauded Sharon for sticking to his policy of relative restraint, retorted, "Ministers want to do that which is effective," the radio reported, cited by Haaretz.
Israel put on a show of force Wednesday, sending tanks and troops into the West Bank after their latest helicopter gunship attack stoked fears of a new explosion in the 10-month-old conflict with the Palestinians.
Israeli military sources were quoted by AFP as saying that the army feared Palestinian retaliation after Israeli helicopters barraged a house in the West Bank town of Bethlehem with rockets on Tuesday, killing four Palestinians including two Hamas militants.
Some 14 others were reported wounded, including a young girl whose arm was severed.
The army said it decided to send in reinforcements after mortar shells were fired on Gilo, a Jewish settlement in occupied east Jerusalem, in the wake of the Bethlehem strike.
The secretary of the Palestinian cabinet, Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, said the deployment proved Israel wanted to attack the Palestinian Authority and was pushing both sides toward further violence.
According to Al Jazeera satellite channel, US President George W. Bush has asked Israeli Prime Minister Sharon to be patient and not to launch an offensive in the Palestinian lands because that “would embarrass the US at the G8 meeting,” to be held this weekend in Rome.
Al Jazeera said that the Israeli army was shelling the West Bank city of Hebron on Wednesday, and heavy clashes were underway between Palestinians and armed Jewish settlers in the flashpoint city.
The station reported another armed clash in Beit Reema, near Ramallah.
Haaretz quoted officials as saying that the mortar fire directed at Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood Tuesday was proof that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat retained good control over the area, which was quiet for a prolonged period before the latest Israeli helicopter gunship raid.
The raid triggered the mortar attack, which in turn led to exchanges of heavy automatic weapon fire.
Meanwhile, AFP reported that Israel's Foreign Minister Shimon Peres denied Wednesday that the massing of Israeli troops in the West Bank was the start of a new offensive against areas under Palestinian control.
"I don't think so, I think this is all imagination," Peres, who is on a visit to Britain, told BBC radio in London.
Peres said that Israel had to protect itself against possible new attacks by suicide bombers.
"We don't have a choice but to intercept them at an early stage, because once they are on their way, we cannot stop them."
Peres told the BBC that Arafat had to work to ensure a ceasefire, which was essential for the peace initiative based on the report by a commission led by former US senator George Mitchell.
"You must have a cooling off period. That was what the Mitchell report said. And we haven't had a single day without funerals, ambulances, sirens. Is that a cooling off period?"
Peres will meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair during his two-day visit, his first since the government of Sharon took office in March.
Since the September 2000 eruption of the latest Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation, the media has reported that Palestinians have killed at least 125 Israelis with weapons ranging from stones and knives to machineguns and car bombs. Israeli military sources have reported well over 600 injuries to Israelis of Jewish descent.
In the same time period, according to the UK newspaper The Guardian, Israeli soldiers and armed Jewish settlers have killed 13 Arab Israelis and 510 Palestinians with weapons ranging from machineguns and tanks to US-made Apache helicopter gunships and F-16s.
According to an Amnesty International report, nearly 100 of the Palestinians killed were children. In addition, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society has reported over 14,000 Palestinians wounded.
Jewish author Noam Chomsky, who according to a New York Times Book Review article is “arguably the most important intellectual alive,” has been quoted as saying: “State terrorism is an extreme form of terrorism, generally much worse than individual terrorism because it has the resources of a state behind it.” - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
