Israeli security forces said Sunday they were responsible for killing a member of the Palestinian movement Hamas in a helicopter attack in the West Bank town of Tulkarem, north of Nablus.
"The Israeli army today attacked in Tulkarem a high-ranking member of Hamas, Amer Hudire, who was preparing a suicide bombing that was going to be executed in the coming days on Israeli territory," the military statement was quoted by AFP as saying.
According to witnesses, 20-year-old Hudire was killed and four other Palestinians were injured in the Israeli helicopter rocket attack which reduced the car the activist was driving to a burned-out shell.
"Amer Hudire was in charge of recruiting Palestinians ready to commit suicide bombings. He was their instructor and used to send them on suicide missions," the Israeli military statement said.
It said he had been arrested by Israel twice before, in 1995 and 1998, and had admitted while in custody to being involved in military activities with Hamas.
Earlier Sunday, an Israeli soldier was reportedly killed and ten others were wounded when a Palestinian resistance fighter fired a machinegun at the HaKirya military base in Tel Aviv, according to the Palestinian Information Center (PIC).
Other reports also indicated that a soldier was probably dead in the attack.
But Haaretz said that civilians were among the wounded. It said eight soldiers, a student and a foreign worker suffered light wounds, while the attacker was killed by shots fired at him by Israeli troops and police.
AFP quoted Army Radio as saying the man arrived in front of the "defense ministry" in a car, from which he opened fire on Israeli soldiers.
The agency said that the man was killed as he tried to flee the scene and crashed his car into a pole.
However, according to Al Jazeera satellite channel, the Palestinian was arrested after he was badly hurt, and was probably clinically dead.
Reports said that the attacker was an Arab resident of occupied east Jerusalem, aged 30.
Security forces quickly closed off the area of the attack, which took place at the David Gate entrance to the base on Kaplan Street, close to the Azrieli shopping center.
Meanwhile, angry Palestinians will step up their campaign of violence against Israel in response to their enemy's assassination policy, Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo warned Sunday.
Abed Rabbo was quoted by AFP as saying Palestinians would retaliate for recent attacks on high-profile Palestinian leaders and said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would be responsible for the upsurge in violence.
"We feel that the Israeli assassinations will lead to some retaliation and the retaliation is the responsibility of the Israeli government and Sharon personally," Abed Rabbo told reporters at the Palestine Media Center in Ramallah.
"Israel's war crimes will invite retaliation and any retaliation is the responsibility of Israel's government. It's not the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority."
Since the September 2000 eruption of the latest Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation, AFP estimates that Palestinians have killed 128 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 AFP, Israeli soldiers and armed Jewish settlers have killed 13 Arab Israelis and 540 Palestinians with weapons ranging from machineguns and tanks to US-made Apache helicopter gunships and F-16s.
According to an Amnesty International report issued early this year, 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)
