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Israelis kill militant leader prompting vow retaliation { August 14 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://nytimes.com/2003/08/14/international/middleeast/14CND-ISRAEL.html?hphttp://nytimes.com/2003/08/14/international/middleeast/14CND-ISRAEL.html?hp
August 14, 2003
Israelis Kill a Militant Leader, Prompting Vow of Retaliation
By JAMES BENNET
JERUSALEM, Aug. 14 — Israeli troops killed a local commander of Islamic Jihad today, prompting a vow of retaliation from the group and providing a further sign that the pattern of strike and retaliation is reasserting itself between Palestinians and Israelis.
As American diplomats worked today to shore up a Middle East peace plan, the road map, the top security officials from both sides planned to meet tonight for further talks.
The major Palestinian factions declared at the end of June that they were suspending attacks against Israelis for at least three months. But Israel says that for its own security it will continue raiding Palestinian cities for wanted men and their weapons as long as the governing Palestinian Authority fails to do so.
Palestinian militants regard these raids as a provocation, or pretext, to strike despite the declared cease-fire. On its Web site today, Islamic Jihad promised retaliation that would register like "an earthquake in the heart of Zionist entity."
The Israeli Army said that its soldiers wanted only to arrest Muhammad Sidir early today when they surrounded a carpentry workshop where he was holed up in Hebron, on the West Bank. The army said its troops followed a routine procedure, calling to Mr. Sidir to surrender.
He refused, and a gun battle broke out, witnesses and the army said. Witnesses said that an army bulldozer destroyed part of the building. At one point, soldiers fired a rocket at the workshop, touching off a series of explosions that an Israeli security official attributed to a weapons laboratory run by Mr. Sidir, 25.
"We assume that he died from the exchange of fire that followed," the official said. "We have no doubt based on our intelligence that his place served as his laboratory."
Witnesses said that troops dragged Mr. Sidir's body from the building and then destroyed the workshop.
Israel held Mr. Sidir responsible for the deaths of 19 Israelis and two international observers. Shaul Mofaz, the defense minister, described him as a "ticking bomb" who was preparing further attacks.
Israeli forces tried to kill Mr. Sidir with missiles fired at a car in Hebron on Dec. 10, 2001. That strike, from helicopters, wounded Mr. Sidir but killed two boys, 2 and 13.
An Israeli military raid into Nablus on Friday, which resulted in the deaths of two Hamas members and at least one stone-thrower, led to a Hamas suicide bombing on Tuesday that killed an 18-year-old Israeli settler. That same day, a separate suicide bombing claimed by Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades killed another Israeli.
Israel demolished the family home of the Hamas bomber today, having destroyed the family home of the bomber from Al Aksa on Wednesday.
Those were the first lethal suicide bombings against Israelis in more than a month, since the early hours of July 8, when an Israeli woman was killed by a bomber in her home.
Despite the renewed fighting, a senior Israeli official said that the peace plan remained on track.
"Both sides are still committed to the road map and want to move forward," he said. "It doesn't mean we won't fight the terrorists where they are. It's stupid and bad for both people to let terror happen."
But Mohammed Dahlan, the Palestinian minister for security, accused Israel of seeking to sabotage the peace plan by trying to provoke Palestinian violence with its military operations.
"Definitely, Israel is pushing the Palestinian groups to retaliate violently," he told Reuters. He urged the Palestinian factions to abide by their unilateral cease-fire.
More than a week ago, in a dispute over the peace talks, the Palestinian prime minister, Mamoud Abbas, canceled a planned Aug. 6 meeting with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel, and no new date has been set.
The road map calls for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace and a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 2005.
Dr. Muhammad al-Hindi, a top leader in Gaza of Islamic Jihad, said that with its raids Israel had "collapsed the political process" and the cease-fire.
Under the terms of the peace plan, Israel pulled its forces back about six weeks ago from parts of the Gaza Strip and most of the West Bank town of Bethlehem.
But Israel has resisted a broader withdrawal, insisting that the Palestinian Authority first begin breaking apart militant groups, as called for in the plan. Having previously ceded control to the Palestinian Authority for parts of the West Bank under the Oslo peace plan, Israel retook control more than a year ago after a series of suicide bombings.
Palestinian officials say that it is Israel that is dragging its feet in complying with the plan by failing to pull back more troops and stop expanding settlements.
Israeli officials recently offered to return policing responsibility to Palestinian forces in Jericho and Qalqiliya. But Palestinian officials scorned that proposal, arguing that there was no Israeli presence in Jericho and that Israel had surrounded Qalqiliya with a barrier of concrete and fencing. They are seeking the handover of Ramallah and other major West Bank cities like Nablus and Hebron.
John S. Wolf, President Bush's special envoy here, visited Qalqiliya today and pressed the Palestinians to accept the Israeli offer, Palestinian officials said.
Maarouf Zahran, Qalqiliya's mayor, said he told Mr. Wolf that as long as Israeli troops retained control of the military checkpoint at the only remaining access to the town, any withdrawal would only undermine the credibility of the Palestinian Authority.
"It is meaningless to the people," he said in a telephone interview. "They will see us as jailers."
He said that the barrier had cut Qalqiliya's farmers off from 45 percent of their land. He said Mr. Wolf told him he would urge the Israelis to put more gates in the barrier for farmers.
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