Following a late Sunday incident in which Israeli troops fired repeatedly at the car of the Palestinian Legislative Council (parliament) speaker Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala) as it approached a roadblock between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem, Israel’s Foreign Minister Shimon Peres apologized to Abu Ala, telling him, "You are the last person we would wish to hurt," Army Radio reported Monday.
Abu Ala was uninjured, but seven bullets hit his BMW car, witnesses said. Armored against attack, the car was not badly damaged and no passengers were injured.
Palestinian sources said Abu Ala had coordinated his journey in advance with the Israelis. Israel Radio reported that the army had opened an investigation into the incident. It quoted the soliders at the roadblock as saying they had received no word of Abu Ala's expected arrival.
The incident occurred Sunday night at a roadblock north of Jerusalem. Qurei was going from Ramallah to his home in Abu Dis, southwest of Jerusalem, after a meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, whom Israel has kept confined to Ramallah for two months.
An Israeli army statement said Abu Ala's car approached the checkpoint at speed and the soldiers, fearing it was about to hit them, fired warning shots in the air.
Meanwhile, in Ramallah Israeli tanks pulled out of the area around Arafat's compound. The tanks positioned around Arafat's office since early December in response to a wave of suicide attacks in Israel, began to move out toward the north of the city early Monday. The Israeli cabinet Sunday decided to allow the Palestinian leader to leave his compound, but not Ramallah.
On the political front, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said Israel's decision not to lift the travel ban of Arafat was a "retreat from what Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pledged."
In Berlin, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer on Sunday called on Israel to lift restrictions on Arafat's movement, and for both sides to resume security talks.
Two Palestinians have been shot dead in separate incidents on the West Bank, hours after Israeli tanks pulled out of Ramallah.
Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian man and wounded his pregnant wife and father at a military checkpoint near Nablus, while a Palestinian woman was shot dead at a roadblock near the town of Tulkarem. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
