Thursday, August 29, 2002

Israeli Tanks Kill Four in Gaza Family
Israeli tanks fired shells at a house in the Gaza Strip early today, killing a Palestinian woman, her two sons and a cousin, drawing an expression of regret from the Israeli defense minister and a reported vow of revenge from militants of the Hamas group.

According to reports from Gaza, the tanks raided a village on the coast south of Gaza City, Sheikh Ijleen, and fired. Hospital officials said the dead were members of the al-Hajeen family, Ruwaida, 55; her two sons, Ashraf, 23, and Nihad, 17; and the cousin, Muhammad, 20. Six or seven people were reported injured.

The night before, Israeli tanks, helicopters and naval ships operated on the coast for several hours after having spotted suspicious barrels in the sea. Palestinians reported heavy fire from the ships from midnight through the early morning, apparently trying to blow up the barrels. Later Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said the barrels carried refrigerators that were presumably being smuggled into Gaza.

Today Mr. Ben-Eliezer expressed regret for the army's killing of "Palestinian innocents" in the predawn assault in Sheikh Ijleen.

The defense ministry said in a statement that Mr. Ben-Eliezer had ordered the army to "present him forthwith with its findings on the incident and conclusions for the future."

The deaths were certain to fire new passions among Palestinians. "When there are killings of Palestinian civilians, Israel can expect killings of its civilians," a senior Hamas leader, Mahmoud al-Zahar, told Reuters today in the morgue of Gaza's main hospital, where the bodies had been taken.

Under an agreement reached on Aug. 18, Israeli troops were to have pulled back in Bethlehem and Gaza, and then in other areas, if the Palestinian police managed to maintain a calm. But after pulling back in Bethlehem and allowing the Palestinian police to resume control of several checkpoints in Gaza, Israel postponed further actions until at least the end of September.

On Wednesday, Mr. Ben-Eliezer cited reported arms smuggling and a mortar shell lobbed into a Jewish settlement overnight in the Gaza Strip as reasons for indefinitely postponing a meeting that had been scheduled that day with the Palestinian interior minister, Abdel Razak Yehiyeh. That meeting was to have discussed the stalled pact for a limited Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian areas.

He cited security as a reason. Israelis and Palestinians have widely speculated that the big reason was stiff opposition in the Israeli military and lack of support from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The accord has also been criticized by radical Palestinian groups, including the militant Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades cells of the dominant Fatah movement.

At the Gaza hospital, Reuters reported, a relative of the killed Palestinians spoke angrily of the failed agreement.

"Where is Yehiyeh?" he asked, referring to the interior minister. "Let him do us a favor and keep silent."

A poll commissioned by the Search for Common Ground, a conflict-resolution in Washington, found that 62 percent of Palestinians said a new approach was needed in their struggle. A strong majority, from 73 to 92 percent, supported using nonviolent methods like boycotts of Israeli goods or mass protests.

But the poll also found that a majority of Palestinians did not believe nonviolent action would work, and 85 percent agreed with the statement that because Palestinians suffered at the hands of Israelis, "then Israeli civilians should suffer at the hands of Palestinians."

The poll also found that 78 percent of Israelis believed that the Palestinians have a right to seek a state, and 56 percent said the Palestinians have the right to oppose the expansion of settlements provided they used nonviolent means.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/29/international/29CND-MIDE.html

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