JERUSALEM Ñ Israel plans to deport family members of Palestinian
suicide bombers from the West Bank.
Officials said the government wants to relocate the male family members
of West Bank suicide bombers to either the Gaza Strip or Lebanon. They said
the recommendation comes after months of meetings by Cabinet ministers in an
effort to seek ways to end the attacks.
Already, officials said, several family members of Palestinian attackers
have been detained. In Nablus, four homes linked to the suspects in the
Hamas attack on an Israeli civilian bus on Tuesday were destroyed. Nine
people were killed in the Palestinian ambush outside the northern West Bank
community of Emanuel.
"There can be a way in which emergency legislation [for Palestinian
expulsions] can be passed within 24 hours or several days," Environment
Minister Tzachi Hanegbi said on Friday. "They can be deported outside the
borders of Israel to Lebanon."
So far, the government has not reached a formal decision whether to
deport the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Officials said ministers
are divided over whether to resettle the families of Palestinian attackers
to the Gaza Strip or to expel them to neighboring Arab countries.
Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein has raised legal objections to the
proposed policy of deporting the fathers and brothers of suicide bombers.
But Foreign Minister Shimon Peres did not rule out that the first expulsions
could take place over the weekend.
"It depends on the legal probe that as far as I know has not ended,"
Peres said.
On Thursday, the Palestinian Authority held a ceremony to honor suicide
bombers. PA Communications Minister Imad Faluji, aligned with Hamas, handed
out checks for thousands of dollars sent by Iraq to the families of the
bombers.
