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Israel stopped plan to destroy its tallest buildings
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SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Tuesday, September 25, 2001
TEL AVIV Ñ Israel has foiled Palestinian plans to destroy the two
tallest office towers in the country.
It was not clear whether the planned Palestinian attack was connected to the Sept. 11 suicide
plane crashes that downed the World Trade Center.
Israeli authorities said two Palestinian men planned to use a car bomb
to down two adjacent office towers in Tel Aviv. The two were arrested on
Aug. 7 and identified as members of the Damascus-based Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine.
The plot was disclosed as Israel resisted U.S. pressure to convene a
summit with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat.
An indictment released on Sunday did not say when the two were to have
blown up the office towers Ñ one building 50 floors, the other 46 floors.
The indictment said Samah Jibril and Rami Katouni had received extensive
military training in Syria.
On Monday, Israel's military declared an area of the West Bank near the
Israeli border as a closed military zone. The zone extends from the West
Bank city of Tulkarm in the west to Jenin in the north. The measure was
meant to prevent the entry of Palestinian insurgents into Israel.
At the same time, an Israeli woman was killed in a drive-by shooting in
the Jordan Valley on Monday morning. The killing was said to have further
delayed a planned meeting between Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and
Arafat.
The United States has urged Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to
approve the meeting. Sharon has linked the Arafat-Peres summit to 48 hours
of a cessation of Palestinian attacks.
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