arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Israeli terror continues
by Saddia Thursday August 22, 2002 at 03:43 PM

What about these people who agree to take over sectors of the front from the IOF, thus freeing the IOF to concentrate forces elsewhere? Are not such people in fact part of the Occupying Forces? Or does the presence of these Palestinian guards in place of the Jewish ones constitute enough of an improvement in people's daily lives that people on the ground will welcome them? In my humble opinion they are Collaborators, and the PA should henceforth be referred to as "Vichy Palestine".

Israeli terror continues despite agreement

Occupied Jerusalem: 20 August, 2002 (IAP News)- No sooner had Israeli tanks rolled out of the streets of Bethlehem Monday night, than a hundred Israeli armored personnel carriers and thousands of crack troops, backed by helicopter gunships, attacked the Tulkarm refugee camp in the northern West Bank Tuesday morning, terrorizing inhabitants and killing two Palestinians.

The invading forces began house-to-house searches for "wanted Palestinians" in the quiet hours before dawn, amid intensive and often indiscriminate firing in all directions in the heavily-populated camp.

Some armed individuals in the camp sought to put up a resistance to the overwhelming attacking forces during which at least two Palestinians were killed and five others wounded.

Eyewitnesses testified that Israeli troops encircled the main hospital in Tulkarm, aiming their heavy machine guns at the premise's entrance and preventing ambulances from reaching the camp to evacuate the injured.

A number of homes were reportedly destroyed or badly damaged by army bulldozers and as many as 20 youths were rounded up and beaten before they were driven away to the notorious Ufer detention camp where thousands of Palestinian internees are languishing in squalid and inhumane conditions.

The Israeli government said the army's terrorist operation in Tulkarm was aimed at "apprehending terrorists" and thwarting possible guerilla attacks.

However, the timing of the onslaught, which came shortly after the conclusion of the Gaza-Bethlehem First agreement with the PA, suggests that Israel, especially Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the military establishment, is not really inclined to restore calm in the West Bank.

This attitude was expressed by several Israeli cabinet ministers who argued that the agreement with the PA would in no way "impede army operations in the West Bank."