July 20, 2002	Saturday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 9, 1423

TEL AVIV, July 19: Israel changed tactics in its fight against suicide bombings on Friday, destroying the homes of Palestinian guerillas and detaining their relatives for possible exile from the West Bank to Gaza to deter future attackers.

The army said its forces, operating near the West Bank city of Nablus, destroyed the homes of wanted militants Nasser a-Din Assidi of Hamas and Ali Ahmad al-Ajouri of Fatah and arrested up to 22 of their relatives.

Israeli sources said the state’s attorney general and military officials agreed on Friday that exile would be an option only for family members who had a proven link to the militants’ plans for attack.

“The family members will be interrogated and whoever was connected to the attack, for example knew about it beforehand, would be considered an accomplice,” a security source said.

“Anyone who was directly involved in planning an attack would be put in jail, but anyone with only a linkage could be punished and deported,” the source said, acknowledging that relatives of militants would likely seek redress against deportation in Israel’s supreme court.

But the plan immediately ran into opposition from the government’s legal adviser and the United States.

It also sparked Palestinian ire and threats of bloody retaliation from Hamas.

The Israeli government’s legal adviser opposed the army’s expulsion plan unless proof was provided of the complicity of family members in attacks.

Such expulsions were only possible in cases of “tangible evidence of their direct involvement in terrorist activity,” said Elyakim Rubinstein, who is attorney general, quoted by Israeli army radio.

He voiced his opposition to the proposal during a meeting with the army’s chief military prosecutor and security officials.

Both the United States and France denounced the Israeli plan.

“We believe that these actions will not solve Israel’s security problems,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters. “We will be raising these concerns with the Israeli government.”

And France warned that Israel would be violating the Geneva Conventions. “The 4th Geneva Convention applies in this case,” French foreign ministry spokesman Francois Riveasseau told a press conference.

Article 147 of that convention, which protects civilians during conflicts, states that the “unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person” would constitute a grave breach.

The expulsion threat was also likely to strain fragile peace efforts, which received a boost after key Arab foreign ministers emerged upbeat from talks in Washington with US President George Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The army arrested up to 21 close relatives of Palestinian militants suspected of involvement in anti-Israeli attacks early Friday and threatened to deport them from the West Bank.

“We are examining the legal possibility of expelling to the Gaza Strip the close relatives of terrorists,” said Raanan Gissin, spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, ahead of Rubinstein’s verdict.

“There is no problem under Israeli law to arrest relatives who themselves are suspects, or to destroy the houses of terrorists,” Gissin said. “But it’s a different case for expulsions.”

Asked if he supported the exile option, dovish Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told the radio: “As far as I know, it has undergone legal scrutiny, and if legally possible, yes.”

Security sources said Assidi was responsible for Tuesday’s bus ambush near the Jewish settlement of Emmanuel, in the West Bank, in which eight people were killed and an attack at the same spot in December in which 11 died.

The sources said Ajouri was behind Wednesday’s attack in Tel Aviv’s foreign worker neighbourhood in which two suicide bombers killed four people.

“The demolition of the terrorists’ homes was meant to make clear to terrorists that there is a price to be paid for their actions and to try to prevent more terrorist attacks,” a security source said.

The back-to-back attacks this week ended a month of relative calm for Israel following its reoccupation of seven of eight West Bank cities in response to suicide bombings last month which killed 26 Israelis.—Reuters\AFP