News and Document archive source
copyrighted material disclaimer at bottom of page

NewsMinewar-on-terrorisraelhostilities200202-4-siege-apr — Viewing Item


16 killed { March 5 2002 }

Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
   http://webcenter.newssearch.netscape.com/aolns_display.adp?key=200203041056000199803_aolns.src

http://webcenter.newssearch.netscape.com/aolns_display.adp?key=200203041056000199803_aolns.src

AP
Tuesday, March 5, 2002

16 Palestinians Killed by Israeli Fire

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Israel stepped up reprisals Monday for
Palestinian shootings and bombings, killing 16 Palestinians including the
wife and three children of an Islamic militant leader and a doctor whose
ambulance was hit during rescue efforts.

Israel's security Cabinet decided late Sunday to intensify military strikes
after 22 Israelis were killed in four weekend attacks by Palestinian
militants. Israeli troops raided two Palestinian refugee camps Monday,
and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said his country was at war.

In the deadliest single incident Monday, a pickup truck belonging to a
leader of the militant group Hamas, Hussein Abu Kweik, was hit in the
West Bank town of Ramallah by two shells fired from a nearby Israeli
tank. A second car was hit by shrapnel.

Abu Kweik's wife had just picked up her children - ages 8, 14 and 17 -
from school and was driving in a well-to-do neighborhood when the vehicle
was hit and all four were killed. In the second car, two youngsters ages 4
and 16 were killed.

Abu Kweik said he would avenge his family.

``I swear to God they (the Israelis) will pay a very high price for this crime,''
he said, accompanied by hundreds of mourners after viewing the bodies at
Ramallah Hospital. ``We will continue our resistance until it's the end of
the last (Israeli) soldier on our lands.''

Hamas has carried out scores of suicide bombings against Israelis in
recent months.

Israel's military said the tank shells were aimed at a car carrying armed
Palestinians and hit the pickup truck by mistake. In a statement, Defense
Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer expressed ``regret at the loss of life of
Palestinian civilians'' as a result of the Israeli shelling.

In 17 months of fighting, Israel has killed dozens of suspected Palestinian
militants in targeted attacks, but Brig. Gen. Ron Kitrey, the army
spokesman, said Abu Kweik had not been a target. He was not in the
pickup truck Monday.

In an Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, six
Palestinians were killed and 20 wounded, eight of them seriously, by
Israeli fire, hospital officials said.

In the fighting, Israeli troops in tanks and helicopters fired machine guns
toward Palestinian gunmen, some of whom had taken cover in homes.
One tank shell hit a house, killing a man and wounding members of his
family, hospital officials said. Ambulances could not reach many of the
wounded for some time because of the heavy shooting, witnesses said.

Dr. Khalil Suleiman, the head of local emergency services, was
overseeing rescue efforts from an ambulance when the vehicle came under
Israeli fire that killed him and seriously wounded three of his colleagues,
Red Crescent officials said. The Red Crescent said the ambulance was hit
by an Israeli tank shell.

Israeli army officials said the ambulance approached an Israeli checkpoint
at high speed and that soldiers opened fire, fearing the vehicle was trying
to run them down. The military said the ambulance exploded, raising
questions about what might have been in it.

The army has said ambulances are being used to smuggle weapons and
gunmen, while Palestinians say soldiers have been firing indiscriminately
at ambulances.

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli troops entered the Rafah refugee camp on the
border with Egypt and demolished three buildings, witnesses said. Troops
exchanged fire with local gunmen, killing two armed Palestinians and a
civilian and wounding seven people, doctors said. The Israeli military said
troops searched for tunnels used to smuggle arms under the border from
Egypt. Also Monday, Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian man who
ran toward an Israeli army checkpoint near the West Bank town of
Nablus, the army said.

The latest chain of attacks and reprisals began last week when Israel
raided two Palestinian refugee camps - Balata and Jenin - in an attempt to
break militant strongholds, killing 23 Palestinians in the fighting.

In retaliation, the Al Aqsa Brigades, a militia linked to Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat's Fatah militia, carried out back-to-back attacks.

On Saturday, a suicide bomber blew himself up in an ultra-Orthodox
Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem, killing himself and 10 Israelis,
including five children. On Sunday, a sniper killed seven Israeli soldiers
and three civilians at an army checkpoint in the West Bank.

Israel's security Cabinet decided in a meeting late Sunday to hit the
Palestinians harder. Sharon told parliament on Monday that Israel would
not succumb to what he has described as a relentless campaign of
Palestinian terror.

``We are in a war over our home and the war is horrible,'' Sharon said.
``But we will win. I am sure in the end that we will win and peace will
come to this home.''

Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit said neither the left nor the right in Sharon's
coalition government has a solution to the current conflict.

``If there was... I imagine Sharon would adopt it and every one of us in the
Cabinet would adopt it,'' Sheetrit told Israel TV. ``I regret that there is no
such magic solution.''

The Palestinian Authority demanded immediate international intervention
to stop ``this barbaric Israeli aggression against our people and our land.''

A leader of the Al Aqsa Brigades said attacks on Israelis would continue.
Many Palestinians are clamoring to become suicide bombers, said the
militiaman, who called himself Abu Mujahed. ``Al Aqsa is becoming an
army now and everyone wants to join,'' he said.


16 killed { March 5 2002 }
Arafat emerges { May 2 2002 }
Attacked reporters
Bethlehem church { April 16 2002 }
Bethlehem gun fire { October 22 2001 }
Church sniper { April 4 2002 }
Church sniper2
Gaza strip alone { May 10 2002 }
Gaza strip { May 10 2002 }
Gunfire nativity
Hrw israel0502 [pdf]
Inquiry blocked { April 24 2002 }
Israel cancels bethlehem withdrawal
Israel pullout1
Israel pullout2 { April 16 2002 }
Israel pullout3 { April 16 2002 }
Israel pullout4
Israeli jenin film { July 25 2002 }
Jenin atrocities
Jenin massacre { April 18 2002 }
Jenin warcrimes { April 22 2002 }
Journalist killed
Journalists { April 2 2002 }
Mary { March 14 2002 }
Monks nativity
Nativity lies { April 3 2002 }
Nativity
Nativity2
Pa vandal
Plans big assault { March 25 2002 }
Priest1
Priest2
Rally for pullout { May 12 2002 }
Revoked journalists
Revoked journalists2
Shells navity { October 22 2001 }
Un calls withdrawl
Un israel { April 15 2002 }
Un jenin report { August 1 2002 }
Un report flawed { August 2 2002 }
Westbank brokendreams { May 7 2002 }

Files Listed: 41



Correction/submissions

CIA FOIA Archive

National Security
Archives
Support one-state solution for Israel and Palestine Tea Party bumper stickers JFK for Dummies, The Assassination made simple