Israeli tanks bombarded Palestinian towns in the northern West Bank overnight, as authorities claimed the attack was in "retaliation" for a suicide bomb attack that killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded 11 others.
"In response to the attack in Binyamina, the Israeli army attacked four Palestinian positions in the northern West Bank," a military source told AFP.
It appeared to be a fairly limited response to the attack in the northern Israeli town of Binyamina, the worst suicide bombing since the truce was proclaimed a little more than a month ago. On Monday, Israeli shelling wounded over 30 Palestinians.
Palestinian witnesses reported that Israeli tanks bombarded the Palestinian self-rule towns of Tulkarem and Jenin with shells, without any immediate reports of casualties.
According to Haaretz newspaper, the tanks shelled outposts of the Palestinian presidential guards unit, Force 17, and of the Palestinian Authority national security forces.
“The IDF forces did not enter Area A, which is under full Palestinian control,” a military spokesman said.
During the operation, the electricity was knocked out in much of Jenin.
Israeli security sources told the paper the Palestinian Authority had done nothing to “prevent terror attacks,” despite the fact that Israel had passed on extensive information to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's forces.
The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack, announcing it via a statement broadcast on Hizbollah's Al Manar television station in Lebanon.
The PA issued a condemnation of the bombing late Monday.
Israel Radio reported Tuesday that ministers in the government had criticized the nature of the response to the attack, saying that it had been “too slow, ineffective and undermined Israel's deterrent capacity,” according to Haaretz.
Transport Minister Ephraim Sneh said Tuesday that he wasn’t interested in "fireworks" but that the army's actions had to be focused on "the terrorists and the organizers of terror. And this is being done successfully," he insisted.
Likud Minister Dani Naveh, who said he opposed meetings with Arafat – Peres met Arafat in Cairo on Sunday – added that Israel had to exert "military pressure" on Arafat and had "to isolate him in the international arena. We have to launch a PR campaign that will expose the real face of Arafat," he said.
The bomber was identified as Nidal Mustapha Ibrahim Shaduf, 20, an unemployed man from the village of Burqin near Jenin who had gone missing from his home on Monday morning, AFP said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who last week warned that his government would respond on the ground to every Palestinian attack, described the bomb attack as a "cruel and savage" bombing, as hopes faded of holding together the June 13 truce mediated by US Central Intelligence Agency director George Tenet.
The Palestinian leadership condemned the bombing, which was the first such deadly attack on Israeli territory since June 1, when 21 young people were killed by a suicide bomber at a Tel Aviv nightclub.
"The Palestinian leadership condemns the operation which caused the death of civilians this evening" it said in a statement published by the official WAFA news agency.
It called for "a halt to all acts of violence and incitement from wherever they come," and affirmed its "respect for the ceasefire agreement."
The Israeli army reported a spate of shooting attacks and other incidents in the West Bank and Gaza Strip late Monday, but said there were no injuries.
However, Palestinian hospital sources said two teenagers were moderately wounded when Israeli troops opened fire on a group of youths near the Muntar (known to Israelis as Karni) crossing point into Israel. Witnesses told AFP that there were no clashes at the time.
Since the September 2000 eruption of the latest Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation, the media has reported that Palestinians have killed at least 125 Israelis with weapons ranging from stones and knives to machineguns and car bombs. Israeli military sources have reported at least 600 injuries to Israelis of Jewish descent.
In the same time period, according to the UK newspaper The Guardian, Israeli soldiers and armed Jewish settlers have killed 13 Arab Israelis and at least 510 Palestinians with weapons ranging from machineguns and tanks to US-made Apache helicopter gunships and F-16s.
According to an Amnesty International, nearly 100 of the Palestinians killed were children. In addition, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society has reported at least 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)
