Israelis kill Palestinian militant in 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 rocket fire from militants in Gaza
that caused no casualties. 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, 28, 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 harboring
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.

FALTERING TRUCE

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.

The de facto truce has been prone to violations and Abbas
has struggled to assert authority over armed factions.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, visiting
Gaza on Thursday, said the EU would donate 200 police cars,
some with bomb detectors, to Abbas’s security forces soon to
help them keep order before and after the pullout.

With around a month to go until the withdrawal, 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.

Overnight about 60 irate settlers used their cars to block
the main crossing point between Israel and the Gaza settlement
bloc of Gush Katif. Police reopened The crossing hours later.

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.

Palestinians fear Sharon’s 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.