TEL AVIV, June 24: The Israeli army arrested 150 Palestinians in the West Bank on Tuesday, in a major sweep targeting the Hamas, after security talks took a positive turn on the eve of a visit by US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
In the largest arrest campaign since the start of the intifada almost 33 months ago, Israeli troops nabbed 130 suspected Hamas militants in and around the southern city of Al Khalil, an army statement said.
“The Hamas infrastructure in the Hebron (Al Khalil) region is responsible for attacks in which 52 Israeli citizens have been killed, including the June 11 suicide attack on a bus in west Jerusalem (occupied Al Quds) which killed 17 (besides the bomber) and wounded more than 100 people,” the communique said.
After Saturday’s killing of the local military leader of Hamas, the vast operation was the latest Israeli move against the radical group.
Hamas leader Abdul Aziz al-Rantissi criticized the arrests and said the continued crackdown was not conducive to reaching an agreement on the truce proposal put forward by Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas.
“Hamas will evaluate its position (on the truce) when the time is appropriate, and it cannot do so as (Israel) raids Hebron and this criminal enemy perpetrates assassinations,” he said.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad said the ceasefire talks would continue.
INDICTMENT: Five Israeli Arabs accused of financing Hamas were indicted in a district court in Haifa on Tuesday.
Four of them, including Sheikh Raed Salah, who heads the hardline wing of Israel’s Islamic Movement, were charged with “belonging to a terrorist organization”.
Sheikh Salah and his top aide are also accused of links with an agent of the Iranian intelligence services, according to an official Israeli statement.
More than 20 other suspected militants were arrested elsewhere in the West Bank, including during a raid into the old city of Nablus, sources on both sides said.
Israeli troops also dynamited a house belonging to an Islamic Jihad militant who carried out a car bomb attack in northern Israel last year. Nine members of his family lived in the house.
GAZA PULLOUT: The Israeli press was upbeat about the chances of an imminent Gaza pullout and predicted the deadlock would be broken before Condoleezza Rice’s visit to the region.
“Israeli officials believe that all the agreements — between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority and between Hamas and Israel — will be completed” by Ms Rice’s arrival in Israel on Saturday, Yediot Aharonot daily reported.
The US official’s visit will come a week after Secretary of State Colin Powell’s whistle-stop tour of the region and visits this week by Washington’s Middle East envoy William Burns and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. All are part of efforts to push for the implementation of the roadmap drafted by the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia.
US envoy John Wolf and his team of monitors have been spearheading mediation attempts on the ground over the past week and the daily Haaretz reported on Tuesday that CIA chief George Tenet, the most seasoned US negotiator in the conflict, could also arrive soon.
The roadmap, which paves the way for the creation of an independent Palestinian state by 2005, has had little impact on the ground since it was released two months ago and accepted by both sides.—AFP
