Israeli tanks firing on Arafats compound again as we speak
- Thread starter HeXp£Øi±
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unclehobart
New Member
No no... This is perfect cover for us to attack Venezuela. They won't be expecting it.
HeXp£Øi±
Well-Known Member
TEL AVIV, Israel, Sept. 19 — Hours after a suicide bomber killed at least five people in downtown Tel Aviv on Thursday, Israeli tanks rolled into the headquarters compound of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, officials said. The bus bombing, the second such attack in two days, had shattered six weeks of relative calm in the Middle East.
PALESTINIAN SECURITY officials said Israeli forces fired machine guns and shells at Arafat’s office, wounding two security officers.
The Israeli army spokesman issued a statement saying, “In response to the terrorist attack, Israeli forces surrounded the compound.”
Raanan Gissin, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, refused to give details, saying the operation was subject to Israeli military censorship.
An official inside the compound told the Associated Press that the Israeli tanks had advanced to the area of a helicopter landing pad outside Arafat’s office building. Arafat’s office is in a central section of a large building, protected by piles of sandbags.
Israel has held Ramallah under siege for most of the year, with tanks breaking into the city-block-sized compound several times, destroying some of the buildings. Arafat has been confined to the building most of the time since last December.
NBC: Calculated week of attacks
The incursion came as Israel’s Cabinet met in special session to consider a response to the suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.
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After past terror attacks, hard-line Israeli Cabinet ministers have called for expulsion of Arafat. Sharon has denounced Arafat repeatedly, holding him responsible for Palestinian violence, and has declared him irrelevant to peace initiatives but has resisted pressure to expel him.
Palestinians charge that Israel’s harsh military measures are responsible for the violence. On the one hand, they say, Israel’s occupation of most of the West Bank population centers has left Palestinian security unable to operate, and on the other, the Israeli curfews and roadblocks have built Palestinian resentment and frustration, leading to a violent response.
The Palestinian Authority issued a statement denouncing the Tel Aviv bombing, saying it gives Sharon’s government a reason to retaliate.
BUSY DOWNTOWN
Thursday’s explosion tore through a bus while it was driving on Allenby Street, in the heart of a crowded restaurant and business district at lunchtime.
Herzl Ben-Moshe, a store owner trying to rescue passengers, said he saw several people lying on the floor of the bus, including one man whose legs had been blown off. “People were yelling, ‘Take us out of here,”’ Ben-Moshe said.
President Bush said he strongly condemned the suicide bombing and one the day before. “We continue to send our message to the good people of that region that if you’re interested in peace, if you want people to grow up in a peaceful world, all parties must do everything they can to reject and stop violence,” Bush said at a meeting in the Oval Office.
After Thursday’s blast, Hamas spokesman Ismail Abu Shanab told The Associated Press he expected to see “a series of operations against the Zionist enemy, as a result of the daily brutal crimes against our people.” But he stopped short of claiming responsibility.
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack, in which a suicide bomber blew himself at a bus stop in northern Israel, killing an Israeli policeman.
Before this week, there had been no suicide bombings in Israel since Aug. 4.
The renewed attacks came a day after Israel rejected a Palestinian proposal for a two-stage truce. Israel said the Palestinian offer to halt attacks in Israel proper during the first phase implied Palestinians still would feel free to strike Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
ISRAEL WEIGHS RESPONSE
Israeli troops already occupy most Palestinian towns in the West Bank and confine hundreds of thousands of residents to their homes daily to try to keep militants out of Israel.
However, troops lifted the curfew in the town of Jenin for several hours Tuesday for the first time in weeks, and there was some speculation that the recent days attackers may have come from the town, a hotbed of militants.
Thursday’s explosion went off just after 1 p.m., outside one of the major synagogues in Tel Aviv, across the street from a Starbucks coffee shop and a block away from the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
“People were hurting, screaming, wounded. We saw pieces of people,” said Zohara Pillo, 27, a visitor from Haifa. “The driver was sitting in his seat and his hands were on the window and he was dead, he was all blackened,” she said.
The blast scorched the bus and blew out its windows. One man with blood over his bare chest was wheeled away by paramedics. Another man sat on the sidewalk, crying. Religious volunteers in white overalls later searched the area, picking bits of flesh and placing them into plastic bags. Jewish law requires burial of the entire body.
Mark Sofer, an official in the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said that “once again, the utter bestiality of Palestinian terrorism has reared its ugly head, on a bus in Tel Aviv.” Sofer held the Palestinian Authority responsible, saying it had done nothing to rein in militants.
Allenby Street has previously been targeted by Palestinian militants. On March 30, a suicide bomber from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militia linked to Arafat’s Fatah movement, walked into a cafe on Allenby Street and blew himself up, killing one woman and wounding 30 people.
12-YEAR-OLD KILLED
In other developments Thursday, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy breaking curfew in the West Bank town of Ramallah to buy cigarettes for his father was killed by shots that a witness said were fired from a nearby Israeli tank. The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident.
In Abu Dis, a West Bank suburb of Jerusalem, Israeli bulldozers razed the family homes of two Palestinian suicide bombers who blew themselves up on a pedestrian mall in Jerusalem on Dec. 1, killing 11 bystanders.
http://msnbc.com/news/801833.asp
PALESTINIAN SECURITY officials said Israeli forces fired machine guns and shells at Arafat’s office, wounding two security officers.
The Israeli army spokesman issued a statement saying, “In response to the terrorist attack, Israeli forces surrounded the compound.”
Raanan Gissin, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, refused to give details, saying the operation was subject to Israeli military censorship.
An official inside the compound told the Associated Press that the Israeli tanks had advanced to the area of a helicopter landing pad outside Arafat’s office building. Arafat’s office is in a central section of a large building, protected by piles of sandbags.
Israel has held Ramallah under siege for most of the year, with tanks breaking into the city-block-sized compound several times, destroying some of the buildings. Arafat has been confined to the building most of the time since last December.
NBC: Calculated week of attacks
The incursion came as Israel’s Cabinet met in special session to consider a response to the suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.
Advertisement Budget Travel
Add local news and weather to the MSNBC home page.
After past terror attacks, hard-line Israeli Cabinet ministers have called for expulsion of Arafat. Sharon has denounced Arafat repeatedly, holding him responsible for Palestinian violence, and has declared him irrelevant to peace initiatives but has resisted pressure to expel him.
Palestinians charge that Israel’s harsh military measures are responsible for the violence. On the one hand, they say, Israel’s occupation of most of the West Bank population centers has left Palestinian security unable to operate, and on the other, the Israeli curfews and roadblocks have built Palestinian resentment and frustration, leading to a violent response.
The Palestinian Authority issued a statement denouncing the Tel Aviv bombing, saying it gives Sharon’s government a reason to retaliate.
BUSY DOWNTOWN
Thursday’s explosion tore through a bus while it was driving on Allenby Street, in the heart of a crowded restaurant and business district at lunchtime.
Herzl Ben-Moshe, a store owner trying to rescue passengers, said he saw several people lying on the floor of the bus, including one man whose legs had been blown off. “People were yelling, ‘Take us out of here,”’ Ben-Moshe said.
President Bush said he strongly condemned the suicide bombing and one the day before. “We continue to send our message to the good people of that region that if you’re interested in peace, if you want people to grow up in a peaceful world, all parties must do everything they can to reject and stop violence,” Bush said at a meeting in the Oval Office.
After Thursday’s blast, Hamas spokesman Ismail Abu Shanab told The Associated Press he expected to see “a series of operations against the Zionist enemy, as a result of the daily brutal crimes against our people.” But he stopped short of claiming responsibility.
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack, in which a suicide bomber blew himself at a bus stop in northern Israel, killing an Israeli policeman.
Before this week, there had been no suicide bombings in Israel since Aug. 4.
The renewed attacks came a day after Israel rejected a Palestinian proposal for a two-stage truce. Israel said the Palestinian offer to halt attacks in Israel proper during the first phase implied Palestinians still would feel free to strike Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
ISRAEL WEIGHS RESPONSE
Israeli troops already occupy most Palestinian towns in the West Bank and confine hundreds of thousands of residents to their homes daily to try to keep militants out of Israel.
However, troops lifted the curfew in the town of Jenin for several hours Tuesday for the first time in weeks, and there was some speculation that the recent days attackers may have come from the town, a hotbed of militants.
Thursday’s explosion went off just after 1 p.m., outside one of the major synagogues in Tel Aviv, across the street from a Starbucks coffee shop and a block away from the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
“People were hurting, screaming, wounded. We saw pieces of people,” said Zohara Pillo, 27, a visitor from Haifa. “The driver was sitting in his seat and his hands were on the window and he was dead, he was all blackened,” she said.
The blast scorched the bus and blew out its windows. One man with blood over his bare chest was wheeled away by paramedics. Another man sat on the sidewalk, crying. Religious volunteers in white overalls later searched the area, picking bits of flesh and placing them into plastic bags. Jewish law requires burial of the entire body.
Mark Sofer, an official in the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said that “once again, the utter bestiality of Palestinian terrorism has reared its ugly head, on a bus in Tel Aviv.” Sofer held the Palestinian Authority responsible, saying it had done nothing to rein in militants.
Allenby Street has previously been targeted by Palestinian militants. On March 30, a suicide bomber from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militia linked to Arafat’s Fatah movement, walked into a cafe on Allenby Street and blew himself up, killing one woman and wounding 30 people.
12-YEAR-OLD KILLED
In other developments Thursday, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy breaking curfew in the West Bank town of Ramallah to buy cigarettes for his father was killed by shots that a witness said were fired from a nearby Israeli tank. The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident.
In Abu Dis, a West Bank suburb of Jerusalem, Israeli bulldozers razed the family homes of two Palestinian suicide bombers who blew themselves up on a pedestrian mall in Jerusalem on Dec. 1, killing 11 bystanders.
http://msnbc.com/news/801833.asp
Shadowfax
<b>mod cow</b>
Isn't there some lame arguement possible to take out Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon while in the neighbourhood in Iraq?
It's about time that those two complete assholes and terrorists (BOTH of them) get the hell out of there.
Damn I still miss Perez. He didn't know the solution to everything either, but at least there was a lot less war at the time.
It's about time that those two complete assholes and terrorists (BOTH of them) get the hell out of there.
Damn I still miss Perez. He didn't know the solution to everything either, but at least there was a lot less war at the time.
