An officer in Palestinian President’s Yasser Arafat's private security force (Force 17) was killed Tuesday when his car was rocketed by an Israeli helicopter in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security officials said, reported Al Jazira satellite channel.
The station identified the officer as Massud Ayyad, a major, saying he was killed instantly when a helicopter fired four rockets on his car as he drove in the Jabaliya area of the northern Gaza Strip.
According to Haaretz, quoting Israeli army spokesman, Ayyad was a leader of a "terror cell" trained by the Lebanese Hizbollah movement.
The death toll mounted further with the killing by Israeli soldiers of a Palestinian teenage boy as he was walking home from school near a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip that has been one of the main troublespots during the four months of raging violence, according to AFP.
Witnesses were quoted by Al Jazira as saying the Israeli forces fired four rockets at the Jabalia camp, and clashes erupted between Palestinians and the Israeli forces.
On the same day, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak said in court documents made public that he considers Israel's policy of liquidating Palestinian activists suspected of "terrorist activities" to be justified, reported the agency.
He said in a letter to the supreme court that Israel's policy, which has attracted widespread criticism from human rights groups, was based on "international law."
It followed an appeal to the court by the widow of the Fateh chief in the West Bank town of Tulkarem, Thabet Thabet, who was killed by the Israeli army in an apparent targeted assassination on December 31.
A burst of Israeli-Palestinian violence threatened to destabilize Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon’s government even before it took shape.
On Monday, two Palestinians were killed in fierce West Bank gun battles, after an Israeli settler was gunned down late Sunday in a sharp reminder of the toll that bloodshed has taken in hobbling the peace process - and thwarting the efforts of Israel's governments to deliver on the twinned promises of peace and security, according to Haaretz.
The two Palestinians were killed and dozens more wounded during another day of violent clashes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Voice of Palestine reported that at least 90 Palestinians had been injured when the soldiers opened fire on the Khan Younis refugee camp, according to reports.
Haaretz said that the Israeli army was also said to have used a "mysterious poison gas" against the residents. It quoted doctors at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis as suggesting this charge was more hysteria than fact. The Israeli army dismissed the charge as Palestinian propaganda.
Gun battles raged between Israeli army troops and armed Palestinians almost from first light, and the army set up roadblocks to limit the movement of vehicles. The Israeli army claim 35-year-old Atef Nabulsi refused to stop his car when ordered to by soldiers near Ramallah, even after they fired into the air and at his car. The soldiers said they feared Nabulsi was trying to knock them down, so fired at his car in fear for their safety, said the daily.
Nabulsi and a Palestinian passenger were severely wounded by the shots; the former died en route hospital.
The Bethlehem area also saw heavy fighting throughout the day, and the Tunnel Road, which links Jerusalem with Ramallah Jewish settlements, had to be closed several times when it came under fire from Palestinian snipers.
Ziad Abu Sway was killed and two other Palestinians were injured by Israeli Border Police gunfire. Palestinian sources said Abu Sway was on a minibus with other Palestinian laborers when he was killed, added the paper.
The Israelis have taken more cautionary measures to protect their illegitimate settlements on the Palestinian lands.
The Jerusalem Post reported that several pre-stressed concrete, portable bomb shelters have been positioned in the Gaza Strip settlement of Netzarim.
The shelters are intended to protect the residents from further mortar attacks on the community, said the paper.
Palestinians lobbed mortars into the settlement on two separate occasions in the last two weeks, causing no injury but considerable damage to residents' homes, said the Israeli daily.
Prime Minister Ehud Barak's security advisor was quoted as saying that "I believe we're talking about an escalation."
"We should remember that even if we are talking about a momentary 'spike,' the spike never goes back down and the incidents will never return to their former (lower) level."
In the Palestinian camp, senior Palestinian official in Ramallah told Haaretz that the Palestinians have no choice but to step-up violence in the territories to prove they are not afraid of Sharon.
The official rejected the apparent widespread misconception, especially in Israel, that Palestinians fear a right-wing Israeli government, and thus there is less violence when the Likud Party is in power.
"Did anybody really expect that there would be peace immediately after Ariel Sharon's election," the source asked. He said he believes an escalation in violence was the most natural response to Sharon's election, though this has little bearing on what may or may not happen in the future.
Meanwhile, Arafat said he discussed the possibility of a 10th anniversary Madrid peace conference during talks in Gaza Monday with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, said AFP.
"This is a part of what we have discussed just now," Arafat told a press conference when asked by AFP to comment on information from the Spanish delegation that an anniversary conference would be broached.
Arafat did not give his opinion about such a conference during his press conference with Aznar. According to the official Egyptian news agency MENA, the Palestinian president then departed for Tunisia. He will head after that to Amman for talks with King Abdullah II.
Officials in Aznar's office told AFP that they expected the Spanish premier to sound out both Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon about having an anniversary meeting in Madrid to commemorate the 1991 peace conference.
But they were not sure what the prospects were given the tension on the ground.
"We held important talks in order to revive the peace process at this special time," Arafat said in his opening remarks to journalists.
"We cannot forget the peace process was launched in Madrid in 1991 on the basis of UN resolution 242 and 338," which call for exchanging land for peace.
In another report, AFP said that US Secretary of State Colin Powell's upcoming Middle East trip will be a listening tour and is not intended to be a platform for the presentation of any new US peace proposals, the State Department said Monday.
Spokesman Richard Boucher was quoted as saying the whirlwind tour -- to include seven stops in Arab capitals, Israel and the Palestinian territories -- would be an introductory visit for Powell to explore possibilities for renewed peace efforts and tightening policy on Iraq.
"I don't think the secretary is going out there on any of these issues to present people with a US plan or a US formula for things," Boucher said.
"He's going there to talk to people, to listen, to hear from them how they propose to deal with each other, how we might be helpful, and to understand things."
Boucher said Washington still wanted to give Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon time to form a government before settling on how to redefine its role in efforts to secure peace deals between Israel and the Palestinians and the Jewish state and Syria.
But, he said, the trip would have implications for peace efforts.
"Obviously, we wouldn't be going to these particular places ... if we didn't have some hope that they would be able to negotiate with each other and reach peace," Boucher said.
"So is this part of that overall process? Obviously, it is. But is he going out to tell them what to do? No."
Powell is scheduled to stop in Egypt, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip Jordan, Kuwait, Syria and Saudi Arabia on the five-day trip beginning February 23.
Also, Powell and other top US officials and lawmakers are to meet in Washington Tuesday with three envoys sent to the United States by Sharon, the State Department said – Albawba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
