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May 31, 2002/Sivan 20 5762, Vol. 54, No. 37
Hunt for terrorists continues
NAOMI SEGAL
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - As the intifada enters its 21st month, Israel and the Palestinians remain locked in a dance of death.
Confronted with a near-daily barrage of Arab terror attacks, Israel's military has adopted a policy of launching limited operations in Palestinian population centers on the West Bank to find and arrest suspected terrorists.
On May 29, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon convened his Security Cabinet to decide how to deal with the resurgence of Palestinian terror.
At the end of the meeting, Cabinet members agreed to continue with the search-and-arrest operations rather than launch a massive campaign similar to Operation Protective Wall.
There was a brief lull in Palestinian terror attacks following that campaign in late March and April. But the lull proved short-lived.
During the past week, there have been a steady succession of attacks, all of which were carried out by the Al-Aksa Brigade, the military wing of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement:
- On the night of May 28, four Israelis were killed in two West Bank attacks. In one attack, three yeshiva students were killed and two others were wounded by a Palestinian gunman who infiltrated the settlement of Itamar. The terrorist was shot dead by the settlement security guard. Earlier, a 50-year-old Israeli was killed in an ambush as he was driving near the settlement of Ofra.
- On May 27, a 15-month-old girl and her grandmother were killed in a suicide bombing that was carried out in the central shopping center in Petach Tikvah. More than 40 people were wounded.
- May 24, a man attempted to drive a car loaded with explosives into a Tel Aviv nightclub. The attack was thwarted when an alert security guard shot and killed the driver, setting off an explosion outside the club. Five Israelis were lightly injured.
- Earlier in the month, there were at least five Palestinian suicide bombings - not counting the attacks that the Israeli military said it was able to prevent as a result of its operations in the West Bank.
Two U.S. officials are due in the region later this week.
CIA Director George Tenet is expected to press the Palestinians to reduce the number of its security organizations and establish clear lines of control over the armed groups.
The second official, William Burns, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, was expected to discuss political reforms in the Palestinian Authority and discuss arrangements for an international peace conference.
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