Arab News

GAZA CITY, 27 June 2003 — The Israeli Army bulldozed a house in Beit Hanun belonging to the northern Gaza Strip police chief, a Palestinian security source said. The army “destroyed the house of Col. Majed Al-Kafarneh, the head of Palestinian police in the northern Gaza Strip,” a spokesman for the national security services said.

The bulldozers also damaged farmland east of Jabalya and set up roadblocks there, the source added. Beit Hanun, a frequent launch pad for rocket attacks on Israel by militant groups, has been reoccupied by Israeli troops for weeks.

Earlier yesterday, two homemade Qassam rockets were fired on the nearby Israeli town of Sderot, causing no casualties, military sources said. The army said earlier it had dynamited a West Bank house belonging to a member of the Hamas movement. “Our forces demolished the house of Nader Radwan Abdelhakim Abu Turki, a Hamas militant who recruited suicide bombers and was personally involved in several attacks,” a statement said.

The army has demolished more than 200 houses belonging to activists and their relatives since last summer as part of a policy aimed at deterring future attackers but condemned by rights groups as collective punishment. Some voices in Israel have questioned the deterrent value of the policy, arguing that Palestinian radicals have no shortage of new recruits for suicide bombings.

According to rights watchdog Amnesty International, the army has demolished a total of around 2,000 Palestinian homes “for security reasons” since the start of the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in September 2000.

The United Nations Security Council yesterday renewed the mandate of UNDOF — the UN observer force in the border area shared by Israel, Syria and Lebanon — for six months. Resolution 1488, adopted unanimously, extends the force’s current mandate, which was to expire on Monday, until Dec. 31.

UNDOF, the UN Disengagement Observer Force, was established in 1974 after the October 1973 Israeli-Arab War. As of May 31, 2003, it counted some 1,043 troops under the command of Gen. Bo Wranker of Sweden, according to the UN. Its annual budget is just over $40 million.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the Security Council in a report released last week that renewing the force’s mandate was “essential.” “The situation in the Israel-Syria sector has remained generally quiet,” Annan said. “Nevertheless,” he added, “the situation in the Middle East is very tense and is likely to remain so, unless and until a comprehensive settlement covering all aspects of the Middle East problem can be reached.”

Two would-be Palestinian suicide bombers were shot dead yesterday attempting to infiltrate the Jewish state from the West Bank, an Israeli military source said. “The two Palestinians were on their way to carry out a suicide attack inside Israel,” the source said. “A bomb expert is currently defusing the explosives found in the two large bags the killed terrorists were carrying,” they added. “During searches in the area, two suspects who most likely helped the bombers were arrested and are currently being interrogated by the security forces.”

The incident took place near the village of Baqa Al-Gharbiya, which straddles the Green Line between Israel and the West Bank. It appeared to have no link to another attack Thursday in Baqa Al-Gharbiya in which an Israeli was shot dead.

The violence in the Middle East after 1,000 days of “intifada” or uprising has claimed the lives of 3,102 Palestinians and Israelis and injured 27,999, the International Committee of the Red Cross said yesterday. A total of 2,398 Palestinians have been killed and 23,150 injured while 704 Israelis were killed and 4,849 injured since the outbreak of the uprising on Sept. 29, 2000.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said it receives 640 emergency calls daily in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israeli checkpoints in the Palestinian territories and limited access for ambulances posed the biggest problem for humanitarian and medical aid.