A senior member of the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas was killed Monday when Israeli agents blew up his car in the West Bank town of Nablus, Hamas officials said.
They named the militant as Aiman Halawa, a member of the Ezzedin Al Qassam Brigades, said reports.
According to Israeli security sources, Halawa was in charge of recruiting Hamas suicide bombers who have wreaked havoc in Israeli restaurants, stations and nightclubs.
The Israelis did not, however, claim immediate responsibility for the Nablus blast, according to the agency.
Halawa was in the vehicle when it exploded in front of Nablus Hospital. Another person in the car was seriously wounded, Hamas said, while a passer-by was also hurt.
Witnesses said an aircraft was heard overhead just before the car exploded. Hamas said it was likely that agents working for Israel had placed a bomb in the car to be detonated by remote control.
Palestinian security officials said the Israeli army had used the same method last week in Bethlehem, when a leader of Fateh movement was killed in his jeep along with two other men.
Israel reactivated its hunt-and-kill policy against militant suspects more than a week ago as its truce with the Palestinian Authority withered; around twenty Palestinains and one Israeli were killed. It killed three Hamas members in three days.
Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said the tactic of assassinating leaders of the uprising had led to the deaths of around 65 people.
ISRAEL THUMBS NOSE AT US DEMAND TO WITHDRAW
Meanwhile, Israel reinforced its presence in Palestinian-ruled territories in six towns and cities in the West Bank, rejecting a call by US to withdraw.
The army will "stay in its new positions so long as the threat of attack exists from terrorist organizations against which the Palestinian Authority is doing nothing,” Israel Radio said, quoting officials close to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
The US State Department earlier urged Israel to withdraw its forces "immediately" from all Palestinian-controlled areas, while calling on the Palestinian Authority to do more to stamp out violence, said AFP.
State Department spokesman Philip Reeker condemned "Israeli defense force actions that have killed numerous Palestinian civilians over the weekend."
"Israeli defense forces should be withdrawn immediately from all Palestinian-controlled areas and no further such incursions should be made," he added.
He described as "unacceptable" the deaths of "innocent civilians" in recent days and said the Israeli incursions into Palestinian-controlled areas "have contributed to a significant escalation in tension and violence."
Israel mounted its military incursion into several Palestinian towns a day after Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi was assassinated by Palestinian radicals on October 17.
PALESTINIANS ASK UN SECURITY COUNCIL TO FORCE ISRAELI WITHDRAWAL
The Palestinian representative to the United Nations. Nasser Al Kidwa, called Monday for an immediate meeting of the Security Council to oblige Israel to withdraw from Palestinian areas, said another report by AFP.
In a letter to council president Richard Ryan, Ireland's ambassador to the UN, Kidwa said the council had "an obligation to take immediate action to ensure the full and immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from areas it occupied recently."
He asked Ryan "to convene an immediate meeting with the aim of considering such action."
Diplomats said the council's reply would depend on the United States, which has been reluctant to see the council discuss the crisis surrounding the 13-month-old Palestinian uprising.
On March 27, the United States used its veto for the first time in four years to kill a draft resolution authorizing a UN observer force for the Palestinian territories.
In his letter, circulated to reporters, Kidwa said Israel had launched "a wide military assault on the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority" last Thursday, a day after Zeevi was shot dead.
Kidwa warned Israel's actions would "probably lead to a general explosion in the Occupied Palestinian territory, including Jerusalem."
On Sunday, the Organization of the Islamic Conference called for an urgent meeting of the Security Council to end "Israeli aggression" against the Palestinians, a call endorsed by Syria on Monday.
Iran, for its part, said the council should "live up to its responsibilities and fulfill its legal obligations," and put an end to "Israeli exaction.”
TENS OF THOUSANDS OF JEWISH SETTLERS URGE ARAFAT ‘EXPULSION’
Tens of thousands of Jewish settlers and far-right Israeli activists urged Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to "expel" Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, at a demonstration in Jerusalem on Monday.
Police estimated the crowd at 80,000, according to AFP.
The demonstration by the settlers of the West Bank and Gaza Strip started with a minute's silence for Zeevi.
Zeevi himself was the leader of a far-right group and an advocate of expelling the Palestinians.
Speakers took to a stage on which two giant posters labeled "twins" stood next to each other, one of Arafat and the other of Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the anti-US terror attacks of last month.
"This is not a demonstration against Ariel Sharon but to encourage him to expel Yasser Arafat to Tunis and to liquidate the Palestinian Authority as an institution," said speaker Benny Kashriel, a leader of the settlers.
"We demand that the government fight terrorism and guarantee us security in Israel and in the settlements."
Yitzhak Levy, head of the National Religious Party, said "the government has to choose... either Arafat is a partner (for peace) as (Foreign Minister Shimon) Peres claims or he is a terrorist and should be treated as such."
Several members of Sharon's Likud Party within the government, including Finance Minister Silvan Shalom and Environment Minister Tzahi Hanegbi, have also called for the expulsion of Arafat.
The Palestinian leader returned in July 1994 from PLO headquarters in the Tunisian capital after the launch of self-rule.
Over the last several years, according to The Economist, Israel has "flouted" the 1993 Oslo peace accords by allowing thousands of Jewish settlers to occupy Palestinian land conquered in 1967.
Infrastructure Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert were among the speakers at the Jerusalem rally, at which hundreds of police were mobilized – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
