Israeli police in the northern port city of Haifa went on special alert Monday noon after they received a "hot and precise" warning that a Palestinian planned to strike at an area of restaurants or another densely-populated region, Israel Radio reported.
Israeli tanks rolled into the northern West Bank town of Yamoun, near Jenin, and surrounded and shelled the house of a local Hamas leader, Palestinian security sources said.
Seven tanks and three army jeeps, backed by two helicopters, entered Yamoun, firing shells and heavy machine-guns from the ground and air at the house of Raed Frehat, the sources told AFP.
The radio said that a car bomb, which was to be used in an attack inside Israel, went off when soldiers fired at it.
Palestinian sources confirmed a car explosion in Yamoun. They could not say whether it was a booby-trapped vehicle.
Meanwhile in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat lashed out at Israel's move to build a massive security fence along the West Bank, calling it a "horrible aggression" reflecting "Zionist racism." Arafat added his voice Monday to a chorus of Palestinian complaints about the barrier that will run along the "green line" between Israel and the West Bank and wind around Jerusalem.
"The separation wall is a horrible aggression, it is Zionist racism and a new apartheid," he told reporters while visiting schools. "It is not possible, under any circumstance, to accept it, and we will refuse it completely," Arafat said.
On Sunday, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat called the security wall "an instrument of (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon for the occupation of our land" and part of his campaign to destroy international peace efforts.
Arafat was undertaking his yearly visit to high-schools to mark the beginning of the two-week-long final graduation examinations. Addressing a crowd of students, he said "you (the future generation) are drawing the true map of Palestine."
Additionally, Arafat blasted U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice on Monday for comments condemning his Palestinian Authority, saying she has no right to dictate to Palestinians how their future state should look.
Rice, in an interview with The Mercury News of San Jose, Calif., said a Palestinian state should not be based on Arafat's Palestinian Authority, which she said was "corrupt and cavorts with terror."
Asked about the Rice comment, Arafat said Monday that "she does not have the right to put or impose orders on us about what to do or not to do." "We are doing what we see as good for our people and we do not accept any orders from anyone," Arafat said. (Albawaba.com)
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