U.S. urges restraint, Israel vows to avenge Hamas attack
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Special to World Tribune.com
MIDDLE EAST NEWSLINE
Thursday, January 10, 2002
JERUSALEM Ñ Israel intends to retaliate for a Palestinian attack in
which four Israeli soldiers have been killed.
Israeli government sources said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon discussed
the issue with senior ministers on Wednesday. The sources did not elaborate.
The United States has urged Israel to exercise restraint. On late
Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell telephoned both Sharon and
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat to discuss the attack on the
Israeli soldiers. The PA has condemned the attack.
So far, Israeli troops and tractors destroyed two PA military positions
and 10 buildings near the where the attack occurred in the southern Gaza
Strip, Israeli military sources said. Palestinian sources said 35
buildings were destroyed in the Rafah area.
Earlier, four Israeli soldiers were killed in a military outpost within
the Israeli border. Two Islamic insurgents from the Hamas movement Ñ one of
them a member of the PA navy Ñ hurled grenades and fired semi-automatic
weapons in an early-morning raid near the Israeli-Egyptian border. The
attackers were aided by another six Hamas combatants who helped them break
through an Israeli electronic border fence.
"They were not discovered by the soldiers," Maj. Gen. Doron Almog, the
head of Israel's southern command, said. "They [attackers] stormed the
position as they threw grenades and fire."
The four soldiers were identified as Israeli Arab Bedouins. Bedouins
often serve as trackers in the military.
The sources said the Hamas attackers were wearing uniforms of the PA
security forces. They said Hamas had planned to attack Israeli military
positions and Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip after the departure of
U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni. Zinni left for Washington on Monday and is
expected to return on Jan. 18.
A Hamas leaflet distributed in Gaza said the attack on the Israeli
position was, in part, a response to the Israeli capture of a Palestinian
boat full of weapons. The weapons were said to have been headed for the Gaza
Strip.
"Hamas will not be held hostage to the cursed Sharon who would like to
strangle the Palestinian people and place President Yasser Arafat under
siege in Ramallah," a leaflet said.
In another development, Israeli authorities arrested a suspected ring of
Druse residents who were smuggling weapons from Syria to the West Bank.
Officials said the weapons smuggled from Syria to the Golan Heights included
mines and hand grenades.
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