Simon
27-06-04, 00:17
7 militants killed in Nablus, including city's Al-Aqsa chief
By Arnon Regular, Haaretz Correspondent, Haaretz Service and The Associated Press
Seven armed Palestinians, including several senior militants, were killed by Israel Defense Forces soldiers in Nablus on Saturday, in the third day of an operation to round up wanted militants and locate bomb laboratories in the West Bank city.
Among those killed were the 38-year-old commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the city, Na'af abu-Sharakh, and the Islamic Jihad commander in the West Bank.
Palestinian sources reported that six of the militants were killed when troops threw a grenade into a room in which the Palestinians were hiding.
Abu-Sharakh was one of the two most-wanted militants in the West Bank, and headed all the militant factions in Nablus. Since 2002, he had also commanded the Tanzim faction in the city.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades on Saturday night vowed revenge for the killing of its commander in Nablus, saying its retaliation would be 'like an earthquake.'
In another incident, soldiers searching from house to house for fugitives shot toward two armed men, killing one, the IDF spokesman said. Troops were looking for the second man.
On Friday, two Palestinians were killed and another was wounded by IDF fire in two separate incidents in the city.
One of the two, 18-year-old Mohamad Foqahaa, was hit as he stood on a rooftop holding a gas canister above his head, the IDF said, adding that soldiers had opened fire due to fears that he would drop the canister on them.
The second Palestinian was killed and a third injured after the two crawled onto a rooftop and aroused the soldiers' suspicion, Israel Radio reported late Friday.
Palestinian security sources said the man was killed as troops stormed his house. The army in response said it was unaware of any such incident.
Religious clerics in the city used mosque loudspeakers to call on Tanzim militants to target the troops operating in the city, Israel Radio reported.
Seventeen people have been wounded since the start of the raid, Palestinian medics said.
As part of the large-scale operation, troops broke down shop doors with sledge hammers and enforced a curfew. Soldiers took over 16 buildings in Nablus' old city, or Casbah, home to about 20,000 residents and a stronghold of militants. Families in the buildings commandeered by troops were confined to one room per apartment, witnesses said.
The IDF said Operation Full Court Press, the largest in over a year, would last several days. The raid was triggered in part by the arrest earlier in the week of an 18-year-old city resident who was recruited by Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades to blow himself up in Jerusalem. The youth was caught at an Israeli checkpoint, and soldiers later found his explosives hidden in a school bag.
On Thursday, soldiers handed out leaflets explaining that they are looking for seven men, most from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militant group with ties to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.
"Help us catch them because they are the ones who are causing damage to Nablus," read the leaflet distributed around the neighborhood.
The large IDF force is also targeting the area's Tanzim infrastructure, which the IDF says is responsible for 80 percent of the planned terror attacks in the West Bank.
Troops discovered an explosives belt weighing 20 kilograms in an apartment and a roadside bomb at a junction, the army said.
The Nablus leader of Al-Aqsa, Nayef Abu Sharikh, was among those on the wanted list. His mother, Dahieh, said soldiers burst into her home looking for her son.
"They were shouting, cursing," she said. "They damaged closets, threw all the things inside on the floor."
Before dawn Friday, security forces arrested five Palestinian suspects in the West Bank, according to the radio.
Also overnight, IDF troops demolished the house of an Islamic Jihad leader, Bassam Abu Aker, in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, Israel Radio reported. The army said Abu Aker had planned terror attacks, including an attack in Jerusalem about three years ago that wounded five people, and had been involved in shooting at the south Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo.
In recent weeks, troops have rounded up several Nablus teens who told interrogators they had been recruited as suicide bombers by militants in the casbah marketplace.
By Arnon Regular, Haaretz Correspondent, Haaretz Service and The Associated Press
Seven armed Palestinians, including several senior militants, were killed by Israel Defense Forces soldiers in Nablus on Saturday, in the third day of an operation to round up wanted militants and locate bomb laboratories in the West Bank city.
Among those killed were the 38-year-old commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the city, Na'af abu-Sharakh, and the Islamic Jihad commander in the West Bank.
Palestinian sources reported that six of the militants were killed when troops threw a grenade into a room in which the Palestinians were hiding.
Abu-Sharakh was one of the two most-wanted militants in the West Bank, and headed all the militant factions in Nablus. Since 2002, he had also commanded the Tanzim faction in the city.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades on Saturday night vowed revenge for the killing of its commander in Nablus, saying its retaliation would be 'like an earthquake.'
In another incident, soldiers searching from house to house for fugitives shot toward two armed men, killing one, the IDF spokesman said. Troops were looking for the second man.
On Friday, two Palestinians were killed and another was wounded by IDF fire in two separate incidents in the city.
One of the two, 18-year-old Mohamad Foqahaa, was hit as he stood on a rooftop holding a gas canister above his head, the IDF said, adding that soldiers had opened fire due to fears that he would drop the canister on them.
The second Palestinian was killed and a third injured after the two crawled onto a rooftop and aroused the soldiers' suspicion, Israel Radio reported late Friday.
Palestinian security sources said the man was killed as troops stormed his house. The army in response said it was unaware of any such incident.
Religious clerics in the city used mosque loudspeakers to call on Tanzim militants to target the troops operating in the city, Israel Radio reported.
Seventeen people have been wounded since the start of the raid, Palestinian medics said.
As part of the large-scale operation, troops broke down shop doors with sledge hammers and enforced a curfew. Soldiers took over 16 buildings in Nablus' old city, or Casbah, home to about 20,000 residents and a stronghold of militants. Families in the buildings commandeered by troops were confined to one room per apartment, witnesses said.
The IDF said Operation Full Court Press, the largest in over a year, would last several days. The raid was triggered in part by the arrest earlier in the week of an 18-year-old city resident who was recruited by Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades to blow himself up in Jerusalem. The youth was caught at an Israeli checkpoint, and soldiers later found his explosives hidden in a school bag.
On Thursday, soldiers handed out leaflets explaining that they are looking for seven men, most from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militant group with ties to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.
"Help us catch them because they are the ones who are causing damage to Nablus," read the leaflet distributed around the neighborhood.
The large IDF force is also targeting the area's Tanzim infrastructure, which the IDF says is responsible for 80 percent of the planned terror attacks in the West Bank.
Troops discovered an explosives belt weighing 20 kilograms in an apartment and a roadside bomb at a junction, the army said.
The Nablus leader of Al-Aqsa, Nayef Abu Sharikh, was among those on the wanted list. His mother, Dahieh, said soldiers burst into her home looking for her son.
"They were shouting, cursing," she said. "They damaged closets, threw all the things inside on the floor."
Before dawn Friday, security forces arrested five Palestinian suspects in the West Bank, according to the radio.
Also overnight, IDF troops demolished the house of an Islamic Jihad leader, Bassam Abu Aker, in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, Israel Radio reported. The army said Abu Aker had planned terror attacks, including an attack in Jerusalem about three years ago that wounded five people, and had been involved in shooting at the south Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo.
In recent weeks, troops have rounded up several Nablus teens who told interrogators they had been recruited as suicide bombers by militants in the casbah marketplace.