The Israeli occupation forces blockaded overnight Tuesday all Palestinian cities in the West Bank and tightened a full closure. The Gaza Strip was also cut into four sections, reports said.
Meanwhile, the Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz approved the call-up of reservists to the West Bank and Gaza Strip to beef up security priority during the Jewish Sukkot holiday, which starts Friday night, Israeli sources said.
Mofaz said on Wednesday that the extra troops were needed to help monitor the border crossings between Israel and the Palestinian areas following information showing that the suicide bomber behind Saturday's attack on a Haifa restaurant in which 19 people died crossed into Israel in a car with Israeli yellow license plates at one of the border crossings. Israeli sources were quoted in the local media as saying the army has information about five separate cells in the West Bank trying to dispatch suicide bombers into Israel. Three are in Nablus and two in Jenin.
Elsewhere, the Israeli forces arrested Tuesday overnight a Palestinian after incurring the city of Rammallah, Palestinian sources said. Eyewitnesses said that an Israeli undercover commando unit broke in abruptly Rukab Street and the area close to the chamber of commerce, in the heart of the city and detained Jameel Saleh Ankoush, 25 aged.
In khan Younis city of Gaza Strip, Israeli forces occupied the house of Ibraheem al Amour, west of Salah Al Din main road and turned it to a military post and held its dwellers in the first floor of the house and took up position at the fourth floor where set up its rifles, WAFA news agency reported.
Abu Ala Cabinet
In the political arena, Israel's Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told the cabinet on Wednesday that newly-installed Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala) had set himself a goal of stopping, temporarily, all attacks against Israeli targets in an attempt to gain legitimacy for his new government.
Shalom told the ministers that though Qurei would not take military action against the armed Palestinian groups and would not try to break them up, he was attempting to stop
attacks in a bid to ease international pressure on the Palestinians.
On his part, Qurei proposed a cease-fire to Israel in a press interview published Wednesday.
"I hope to work with your government and reach a truce. Give us a chance to prevent a continued deterioration [of violence]," Qurei said in an interview with the Tel Aviv-based Ma'ariv daily, one day after his emergency cabinet was sworn in.
Qurei said he was ready to begin contacts with Israel immediately with the goal of making progress on the stalled U.S.-backed peace plan.
"We are ready to fulfill our obligations as outlined by the road map on the condition that Israel fulfills its obligations as well," Qurei said. (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
