AL QUDS, Nov 22: Israeli special forces have stepped up raids on Palestinian towns and villages to snatch suspected militants in covert operations which have drawn little international condemnation and a muted Palestinian response.
In the past two weeks, at least 66 Palestinians have been seized in swoops that deeply undermine Palestinian sovereignty.
An Israeli political source said the operations are an alternative to heavily-criticised broad incursions into Palestinian areas and a means to pressure the Palestinian Authority to arrest the militants themselves.
Palestinian political analyst Ghassan al-Khatib said Palestinian reaction to the undercover tactics has been muted partly because people had not been killed and because President Yasser Arafat has been under global pressure to curb militants.
But he said the arrests undermine the Palestinian Authority and weaken Arafat.
“The Palestinians are under pressure from all over the world to keep quiet no matter what the other side is doing and they hope that this quiet will bring pressure on Israel eventually,” Khatib said.
Israel drew international fire for launching a broad offensive against six Palestinian-ruled areas in the West Bank last month in a sweep for militants after Palestinian radicals killed a cabinet minister to avenge the killing of their leader.
“Wherever it’s possible to make arrests we prefer it to killing people,” the political source said, referring to a widely censured policy of what Palestinians call Israeli assassinations.
“Some of these people are needed for intelligence so it’s better to get them alive than dead,” the source said.
In the past two days, Israeli commandos captured two Palestinians it said were militants from their home near the Palestinian-ruled West Bank city of Tulkarm and seized another six Palestinians from the Israeli-controlled town of Bir Zeit.
Israel launched the wave of arrests after saying two weeks ago it would begin using guerrilla tactics to fight the Palestinian uprising.
RESPONSE MUTED: Jibril Rajoub, head of Palestinian Preventive Security in the West Bank, called the arrests an escalation in nearly 14 months of bloodshed in which more than 900 people have been killed.
“This is an Israeli attempt to abort any U.S. efforts to contain Israeli aggression and to poison the atmosphere before the arrival of the U.S. envoys,” Rajoub said, referring to a U.S. mediating team due to arrive on Sunday to help the sides reach a ceasefire.
But Rajoub’s response to the arrests was not as harsh as past reaction to Israel’s policy of tracking down and killing Palestinians on its wanted list.
Under that policy, Israel has killed some 70 Palestinians since the uprising erupted in September 2000 after peace talks stalled.
Israeli security expert Eran Lerman said the increased use of undercover forces to capture Palestinians was a sign the security forces had matured in more than a year of violence.
“It is much more difficult to apprehend people with forces on the ground than to kill them from a long distance,” he said, referring to Israel’s earlier use of helicopter missile attacks to strike at suspected militants.
Lerman said that although Israel preferred to capture militants, it would still kill people to abort attacks.
“We took a lot of flak on targeted killings...and they’re not even in our interests,” he said. “But...occasionally there will be no other way...when you’re not sure there is any other way to apprehend the people.”—Reuters