A top Israeli security officer was killed Thursday in a shootout in the West Bank, south of Jerusalem, said reports.
Palestinians said the officer was behind a number of assassinations of Intifada leaders by the Israeli army.
Israeli reports said that the officer came to the area to meet a “collaborator,” but it turned out to be a setup. At the outset of the meeting, the Israeli came under fire.
The Palestinian who carried out the operation was killed in the incident.
According to initial reports, cited by Haaretz newspaper, two Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a vehicle carrying two Israelis.
The passenger opened fire on the two Palestinians, killing one of them.
Al Jazeera satellite TV channel identified the killed Palestinian as Hassan Abu Sh’eera, adding that a group calling itself “Hussein Ebayyat” claimed responsibility for the attack.
But Reuters quoted a senior Palestinian official as saying that in the shooting, Ayub Da'dura, who spent two years in a Palestinian jail for collaborating with Israel, went to an undercover meeting with his handlers and killed the Israeli army officer and wounded his bodyguard.
The road where the killing took place has been closed on numerous occasions during the Intifada as a result of shooting.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that the Israel would not withdraw its forces or lift restrictions in areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip where shooting continued, said Haaretz newspaper.
The escalating confrontations, that have seen two Palestinians killed in less than 24 hours, came against the backdrop of a ceasefire agreement reached between the two sides under the auspices of CIA chief George Tenet.
Palestinian leaders said Wednesday that the ceasefire with Israel was part of a comprehensive plan that includes implementing the Mitchell Commission's recommendations on ways to end the conflict in the Occupied Territories.
The leadership issued the statement following a late Wednesday meeting in the West Bank town of Ramallah, chaired by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, said AFP.
It did not specifically confirm a statement earlier by Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin ben Eliezer that the ceasefire had formally gone into effect at 3:00 pm (1200 GMT).
Reuters, meanwhile, reported that the Israeli army withdrew tanks and removed a roadblock near the isolated settlement of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip on Thursday.
A Reuters TV cameraman at the scene said there were no tanks in the area -- only army jeeps -- and that Palestinian traffic was flowing freely in an area that has been a flashpoint of Israeli-Palestinian fighting during the Intifada.
Meanwhile, the US State Department on Wednesday said the next 48 hours in the Middle East would be "critical" if a new truce agreement between Israel and the Palestinians was to hold, according to AFP.
Echoing comments by other US officials, department spokesman Philip Reeker said the next two days would decide whether the ceasefire blueprint brokered by Tenet would work and lead to a resumption of peace talks.
"Implementation will require good-faith efforts by both sides and I think the next 24 hours -- 48 hours at least -- are critical for each side to demonstrate to the other its commitment to fulfilling the obligations they've undertaken," Reeker told reporters.
"We're going to be watching this very closely," he said. "It's a good plan, we're very pleased that both sides have signed on and that's where we'll continue."
Since the outbreak of the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict last September, Reuters reports that Palestinians have killed approximately 88 Israelis with weapons ranging from stones and knives to machineguns and car bombs. The June 1 suicide bombing raised that toll by at least 20. Israeli military sources have reported well over 600 injuries to Israelis of Jewish descent.
In the same time period, according to CNN, Israeli soldiers and armed Jewish settlers have killed 13 Arab Israelis and 450 Palestinians with weapons ranging from machineguns and tanks to US-made Apache helicopter gunships and F-16s. The most recent Israeli tank attack raised that death toll to at least 453.
According to Amnesty International, 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)
