By Izzat Ramini
Albawaba.com - Ramallah
Israeli army bombarded late Monday the Palestinian towns of Ramallah, Beireh, Nablus, Jericho and Khan Younes. The offices of mainstream PLO faction, Fateh in Beireh and Nablus were destroyed by Israeli rockets.
Ramallah was under an artillery attack, while heavy machineguns were shelling the Sateh Marhaba area in the city.
Israeli rockets targeted the Fateh offices in Beireh, destroying them completely.
The Israeli army also bombarded the Palestinian military intelligence and Force 17 in Khan Younes, while the Intelligence headquarters in Jericho and Aqbat Jaber camp were showered with bullets from 500 machineguns.
Al Jazira TV reported that the Fateh offices in Nablus were also hit by three rockets, and another three rockets hit an open area in the Jabal Shamali near the city.
In the meantime, Israel warned on Tuesday it could inflict "even harder blows" against the Palestinians following the overnight strikes by helicopter gunships on Palestinian positions in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, according to AFP.
"These attacks were not a punishment, but a form of deterrence to demonstrate that the Israeli army has the ability to inflict even harder blows against the institutions and interests of the Palestinian Authority," said Danny Yatom, top security adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
The army said its air strikes were specifically “aimed at Force 17 and the Tanzim militia of Arafat's Fateh faction,” which Israel holds responsible for instigating a wave of violence across the Palestinian territories that has left more than 155 people dead, said the agency.
"We had to respond to the escalation of the situation on the ground, but we only used part of our forces," Yatom told army radio.
"But we can't say that one action or a series of actions will be a magic wand to restore calm."
He said that, despite the conflagration in the territories over the past month, there were still military, political, economic and administrative contacts with the Palestinians.
On Monday, two Israeli security guards were shot at point-blank range at an Israeli government building in occupied east Jerusalem, and one died later of his injuries.
An Islamic groups, the Martyrs of the al-Aqsa Uprising, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement faxed to AFP in Beirut.
A Jewish settler was found bound and stabbed to death near the Arab village of Beit Jala near Jerusalem – Albawaba.com
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
