Israel Responds with Missile Attacks & Bars Palestinians from Going to London Peace Talks

06/01/2003| IslamWeb

Israel responded Monday to the killing of 22 people by Palestinian resistance bombers with a helicopter attack, as well as barring Palestinians from going to a London peace parley and a PLO meeting in the West Bank. More than 100 people were wounded in the Tel Aviv blasts that turned a crowded pedestrian mall in a foreign workers' neighborhood into a killing field Sunday, the most serious attacks in Israel in six months.

The bombings, condemned as "terrorism" by the Palestinian Authority , came just three weeks before an election in Israel at which security concerns will be paramount for many voters, and could smooth right-wing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's bid to regain power.

Hours after two Palestinian resistance bombers detonated explosives packed with nails and bolts for more deadly effect, Israeli helicopters attacked two metal foundries in Gaza City which the occupation army described as weapons factories.

Five people were wounded in the Israeli air raid, one of many such attacks that Israel has mounted against similar targets in a 27-month-old Palestinian uprising for statehood, Palestinian officials said.

Israeli government sources said Sharon tempered a military response to the bombings to avoid upsetting U.S. efforts to win Arab support for possible war on Iraq.

Dr. Yehuda Hiss, director of Israel's national forensic institute, told Reuters 22 people were killed by the two resistance bombers. Earlier official figures put the number at 23.

By midday Monday, 15 of the dead had been identified. Hiss said 11 were Israelis and four were foreigners -- two Romanians, one Ghanaian and a Bulgarian.

"I prayed not to die and thought maybe God would save me because I was in the Holy Land," said John Adu, 45, a house-cleaner from Ghana who was knocked to the ground but unhurt by the two blasts, which occurred two minutes apart.

PALESTINIANS BARRED FROM TALKS

Israeli government sources said Sharon's security cabinet decided to stop top Palestinian officials from traveling to a Jan. 14 London conference sponsored by Britain on Middle East peace and Palestinian Authority reforms demanded by Washington.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he deplored the resistance bombings but regretted the decision to stymie talks.

"I hope very much that the Israeli government will think again," Straw told BBC Radio.

The government sources said Israel would also prevent the Palestinian Central Council from meeting for the first time in two years on Jan. 9 to ratify a Palestinian constitution, including a clause establishing the post of prime minister.

"To prevent us from going to London means to prevent any attempt to revive the peace process and to break this vicious cycle of violence," said Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian cabinet minister and peace negotiator.

"To prevent the PCC from convening means to prevent the Palestinian people's representatives from openly debating the constitution of the future Palestinian state," he told Reuters.

The meeting of one of the Palestine Liberation Organization's top bodies was to have been held in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Israeli forces reoccupied Palestinian cities after resistance bombings in June.

RESISTANCE GROUP CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY

The resistance al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed offshoot of Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for the attacks in statements Sunday and Monday, saying it was retaliating for demolitions of Palestinian homes.

But another statement issued in the name of the group late Sunday denied responsibility after Fatah's main political body said the two men were not on its "membership files" and that it condemned acts such as the Tel Aviv bombing.

The conflicting statements represented apparent divisions in the brigades over whether to carry out resistance bombings, which the Palestinian Authority has repeatedly called detrimental to the cause of statehood.

Avi Pazner, an Israeli government spokesman, said the Palestinian Authority bore overall blame because of what he termed its incitement of violence.

The Tel Aviv attack was condemned by the European Union  and President Bush .

"He (Bush) condemns this in the strongest possible terms," White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said. "There are those who want to derail the peace process. But the president will not be deterred."

Before the attack, the death toll of those killed since the Palestinian uprising started in September 2000 was at least 1,760 Palestinians and 676 Israelis.

PHOTO CAPTION

Two Palestinians sit on the roof of their destroyed house near a three-story building belonging to the family of wanted resistance men Hassan Abu Armana, January 6, 2003. The home was blown up by Israeli occupation armed forces in Rafah refugee camp, in the southern Gaza strip . (Andrea Comas/Reuter