November 17, 2002	Sunday	Ramazan 11, 1423

AL KHALIL, Nov 16: The Israeli army reoccupied the divided southern West Bank city of Al Khalil on Saturday in response to a shooting attack which left 12 Israelis dead.

Around 40 armoured personnel carriers and jeeps moved into various areas of the city, entering a Palestinian police station and taking over at least one house, Palestinian residents said.

“The army is going back into the places that it left a few weeks ago — it is moving back in following last night’s terror attack in Hebron (Al Khalil),” an Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed.

Troops which had evacuated the flashpoint city three weeks ago after concluding the threat of attacks had receded, but were prompted to move back in after the double ambush.

Palestinian witnesses said about 10 military vehicles pushed into the north of the city, taking over a Palestinian police station and closing down the local joint liaison office.

Residents in the south of the city said they saw four army vehicles entering their area and taking over at least one house.

Teams of soldiers had began house-to-house searches earlier in the day, arresting 41 Palestinians, including four wanted men, the army said.

The website of Israeli daily Haaretz said easing measures put in place in Al Khalil for Ramazan had been cancelled, but Israeli authorities were not immediately available to confirm the report.

An undetermined number of attackers belonging to the hardline Islamic Jihad group had opened fire on Jewish settlers as they were going home from Sabbath prayers.

The men then ambushed troops who rushed to the settlers’ rescue.

Nine border police and soldiers, including a colonel, were among the dead. Fourteen people were also wounded, all of them soldiers or policemen, according to the army.

Three Islamic Jihad activists were killed in the ensuing gunbattle.

Al Khalil is the scene of frequent clashes between the settlers and Palestinian population. Some 600 radical Jewish settlers live there enclaved among 120,000 Palestinians.

COLONEL KILLED: An Israeli colonel killed in Friday’s shooting was the most senior officer to die in the two-year-old intifada, the army confirmed on Saturday.

Colonel Dror Weinberg, 38, was the commander of the army’s Hebron Brigade, a spokeswoman said.

She identified just six of the other security personnel killed — army sergeant Igor Drovitsky, 20, from the resort town of Nahariya, and five border policemen: Superintendent Samih Suidan, 31, Sergeant Tomer Nov, 19, Staff Sergeant Gad Rahamim, 19, Staff Sergeant Natanel Mahlouf, 19, and Staff Sergeant Yeshayahu Davidov, 20.

MUBARAK: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak demanded at the opening of the new session of parliament Saturday that Israel’s weapons of mass destruction be submitted to the same UN inspections being imposed on Iraq.

The Egyptian leader also warned against any attempts to exploit the US-led war against terrorism to change regimes by force.

“We continue to demand, with insistence, that the same norms be applied to Israel to get rid of all its weapons of mass destruction potential,” Mubarak said to sustained applause from lawmakers.

Such a move would “consolidate the international movement toward the banning of the proliferation of these weapons, because of their danger for all humanity,” he said.

He also stressed the necessity of “opposing campaigns, being conducted by certain parties, to exploit the international campaign against terrorism with the aim of bringing about economic benefits or changing leaders and regimes by force,” without naming any countries.

Mubarak has urged Iraq, which faces a theat of US-led military action if it does not end banned weapons programmes, to accept new UN Security Council Resolution 1441 to avert a war which would likely topple its government.—AFP