Israelis kill Palestinian militant in West Bank raid

By Nadia Sa’ad

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) – Israeli troops killed a
Palestinian militant in a West Bank raid on Thursday, stepping
up operations after a suicide bombing that shook Israel as it
prepares to pull out from some occupied territory next month.

The raid was followed by militant rocket fire from Gaza
that injured no one. The violence further frayed a ceasefire
declared by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas at a February summit.

A serious resurgence of bloodshed could disrupt Israel’s
planned pullout from Gaza and part of the West Bank, its first
evacuation of settlers from territory captured in the 1967
Middle East war and which Palestinians want for a state.

Troops killed Mohammed al-Asi, a local commander for both
the Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades groups in
Nablus, in an exchange of fire with gunmen after surrounding a
building and calling on militants inside to surrender.

“They saw two suspects trying to jump over a wall. One of
them went inside the building and the other approached them. As
he approached they shouted for him to stop, he ran toward them
and they fired at him,” said army spokesman Major Sharon Asman.

The other militant, also from Islamic Jihad, was arrested
after surrendering along with two other people who were in the
building, a Palestinian man and a British woman, the army said.

They said they did not know if the woman — who they
described as a pro-Palestinian activist — had been harbouring
the two wanted men or whether they were in the house by chance.

Shortly afterwards, Islamic Jihad gunmen in Gaza fired two
rockets into nearby Israel. No injuries were reported from what
the militants said was a response to the Nablus raid.

The army resumed a security crackdown in the West Bank
after an Islamic Jihad suicide bomber killed two teenage girls,
two women and a soldier in the Israeli town of Netanya on
Tuesday.

It was the first such attack since February and another
sign that Islamic Jihad, sworn to Israel’s destruction, had
opted out of a “calm” declared by militant groups at Abbas’s
behest.

OUTSIDERS BARRED FROM GAZA SETTLEMENTS

With around a month to go until the pullout, Israel sealed
off all settlements in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday to pre-empt
attempts by ultra-rightist Jews to block evacuations.

Enraging settlers, Sharon signed an order closing Gaza’s 21
settlements to non-residents after ultranationalists announced
plans for a march next week that could have brought an influx
of thousands of protesters into the Jewish enclaves.

As the indefinite entry ban took effect, cars and trucks
quickly backed up at the main crossing point between Israel and
Gush Katif, Gaza’s largest settlement bloc. Israeli drivers,
demanding to be let through, waved identity cards at police.

Overnight about 60 furious settlers used their cars to
block the border point, tying down Israeli security forces.
Scuffles erupted and it took police several hours to reopen the
crossing.

Rightist opponents of Sharon’s plan, which he has described
as “disengagement” from conflict with the Palestinians, vowed
to step up demonstrations in Israel against the pullout plan.

Polls show most Israelis favor the move, regarded by
U.S.-led international mediators as a potential springboard to
talks on a “road map” peace plan for the Middle East.

But rightists, many claiming a biblical birthright to Gaza
and the occupied West Bank, say pulling out would reward
militants who have spearheaded attacks during an uprising.

Palestinians fear the plan will give them only tiny,
impoverished Gaza while Israel cements its hold on much bigger
West Bank enclaves housing most of the 240,000 settlers. More
than 3.6 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and Gaza.