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FROM: http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,947767,00.html
Boy, 2, Among 14 Killed
By Israeli Troops
Road map Raid comes as
Israel plans prisoner release
Conal Urquhart in Jerusalem
Friday May 2, 2003
Israeli troops killed
14 Palestinians yesterday, including two boys
aged 2 and 13, as the government promised a series of "confidence
building measures" in reply to Wednesday's presentation of the
road map to peace.
The measures will include
the release of up to 60 Palestinian prisoners and the dismantling of
up to 12 illegal outposts. The measures are expected to coincide with
the visit of Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, to Israel next
week.
Yesterday's raid began
at around 2am with tanks and undercover troops in cars entering Gaza
City's Shijaiyah neighbourhood, a Hamas stronghold. Their target was
Yusuf Abu Hein, 31, a senior figure in Hamas.
Israeli soldiers surrounded
his apartment, which also contained two of his brothers, Ayman, 29,
and Mahmoud, 38. The three exchanged fire with the soldiers until the
Israelis blew the building up, killing all three men.
More than 200 gunmen,
many wearing black masks, rushed to the scene, as mosque loudspeakers
called for a jihad, or holy war.
Intense fighting continued
into the afternoon. Israeli troops fired tank shells and heavy machine
guns, and helicopters fired five missiles. Palestinians were armed with
assault rifles and anti-tank missiles.
Fadel Abu Hein, a child
psychologist and a brother of the wanted man, said his four-storey apartment
building came under intense fire.
"We
are sitting in full darkness. Children are screaming. We are trying
to calm them down, but bullets are coming from all directions,"
he said.
A reporter from the
Associated Press saw two boys, aged 12 and 14, hit by Israeli fire as
they tried to run away from a burst of shooting. The 14-year-old was
struck in the neck, and doctors later said
he was paralysed from the neck down.
Among the other fatalities
were five gunmen, two adult civilians, and two boys, aged two and 13,
doctors said.
Sixty-five Palestinians
were wounded, including 15 who were in critical condition. Two-year-old
Amer Ayad was hit by a bullet to the head while he was near a window
in his home, said his father Ahmed, a blacksmith. "Is
this the new peace President Bush promised?" he said. "They
wrote the answer using the blood of my son."
Eight Israeli soldiers
were wounded, including one who was in serious condition. Earlier in
the West Bank, two Palestinian gunmen were killed in a clash with Israeli
soldiers near the village of Yatta.
The raid followed the
suicide attack on a Tel Aviv bar on Wednesday which killed three people.
Hamas and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade claimed responsibility but the
bomber was later named as a Briton, Asif Mohammed Hanif. He was accompanied
by another Briton, Omar Khan Sharif, whose bomb failed to detonate.
Israeli security forces are still searching for Sharif.
Despite the recent violence
Israeli government officials said they planned to carry out confidence
building measures in the coming week. An official said: "The prime
minister and the defence minister are discussing the steps they will
take. They are looking at releasing dozens of prisoners, maybe as many
as 60, and dismantling between four and 12
illegal outposts.
"Obviously they
will be some of the less controversial outposts because we don't want
to create internal problems."
If there were more terrorist
attacks, it might be impossible to carry out the measures, he added.
A difference of opinion
has already emerged on the road map to peace, which envisages a Palestinian
state by 2005. The Palestinians insist that while they crack down on
militants and prevent attacks on Israel, the road map calls for Israel
to remove its military pressure on the Palestinians.
Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian
authority's minister for negotiations, said that the representatives
of the quartet who wrote the road map, the US, UN, EU and Russia, had
assured the Palestinian leadership that Israel and the PA's obligations
should be met in parallel.
"The quartet delegation
made clear that Israel would not be allowed to avoid its road map obligations
through the unilateral imposition of arbitrary
conditions and unreasonable sequencing," said Mr Erekat.
In Jerusalem, an official
in the office of Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, said that Israel
viewed the road map differently, insisting
the Israelis would only act once the Palestinians had fulfilled their
requirement to stop all violence and reform their government.
"We continue to
stress that the road map is a series of sequential steps as
outlined in President Bush's speech of June 24 2002.
We are still waiting
to see if they take concrete and energetic steps to combat terrorism,"
he said.
FROM: http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,947767,00.html
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