After Attack, Sharon Calls for Securing Settlements
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called for strengthening the Jewish settlements in the Hebron area as he toured the West Bank town on Sunday, two days after Palestinian gunmen killed 12 Israeli security forces and guards here.…

According to Palestinians, the troops have taken over seven homes to use as lookout posts and have demolished two homes of suspected militants of the Islamic Jihad group, the group that carried out the attack.

Sharon said Sunday that Israel would bolster the Jewish settlements in the Hebron area by linking up several small settler enclaves in the city and the neighboring Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba, just to the east of Hebron, Israeli radio stations reported.

It was not clear how Sharon intended to achieve this, and officials in Sharon's office were not immediately available for comment on the report.

About 450 Jewish settlers live in several enclaves near the center of Hebron, a city with about 130,000 Palestinian residents. In addition, several thousand settlers live in Kiryat Arba, about a half-mile away.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians live between the Hebron and Kiryat Arba settlements.

Israeli Housing and Construction Minister Natan Sharansky said Sunday that Israel might construct additions to the Jewish settlements to connect the two areas, which includes the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a site holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians. However, it was not clear how Israel could do this without removing the Palestinians.

``We have to change the situation in the field,'' Sharansky told Army Radio. ``We have to build settlement contiguity between Kiryat Arba, the Cave of the Patriarchs and the settlement community in Hebron.''

Israeli troops moved into Hebron and other West Bank cities in June following a series of Palestinian suicide bombings. The army pulled out of Hebron three weeks ago, saying the area was calm.

Meanwhile, Jewish settlers placed three shipping containers in a vacant lot near the scene of the Friday night shooting, saying they were establishing a new Jewish outpost in Hebron. ``Death to Arabs,'' read the graffiti spray-painted on one of the containers, which will be used as makeshift homes, the settlers said.

The Palestinian Authority did not condemn Friday's shooting. The position is part of a policy under with the Palestinian leadership denounces violence inside Israel, but does not criticize attacks against Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Palestinians want these areas for a future state.

Jewish settlers vowed revenge for the shooting attack in a rally Saturday night.

In a sign of the tensions, Israeli forces closed a liaison office in Hebron, ordering Palestinian officers who coordinated activities with Israelis to leave, Army Radio reported.

As one of the most volatile West Bank cities, Hebron is a frequent scene of violence. Israeli soldiers control the city center where about the Jewish settlers, including many extremists, live in the midst of the large Palestinian population, many of them fundamentalist Muslims.

In 1994, an American-born Jewish settler killed 29 Muslim worshippers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, reputed to be the burial site of the biblical Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and three of their wives. In 1929 and 1936, Arabs massacred Hebron's Jewish residents.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html