Israel Murders Five Palestinians in West Bank, Ends Truce IOF Kill 351 Palestinians since Annapolis Conference 13/03/2008

by **Admin** Fri Mar 14, 2008 2:57 am

The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) extra-judicially murdered five Palestinian anti-occupation activists in the West Bank Wednesday, invoking rocket attacks from Gaza Strip in retaliation, which in turn led to the renewal of the IOF air strikes on Thursday, that effectively ended a tacit five-day truce around the coastal strip.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA quoted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' office as calling the Bethlehem killings “an ugly crime” and warning Israel of unspecified “consequences.”

According to an AFP count, since the US-hosted and sponsored Annapolis conference on November 27, the IOF killed at least 351 Palestinians, about half of them were civilians including infants, children, women, elderly men and farmers, a shepherd and a teacher.

On Wednesday evening, IOF commandos disguised as Palestinians and riding in a taxi with Palestinian license plates extra-judicially executed four Palestinian anti-occupation activists in the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem.

Salah al-Ta’mary, the governor of Bethlehem, told al-Jazeera TV station Wednesday that the four victims were committed to truce and President Mahmoud Abbas was discussing their file with the Israeli side to include them in a pardon deal reached three months ago with Israel. The Israeli daily Haaretz reported Thursday they were not linked to any direct or specified security alert and they were targeted because an “opportunity” came up.

The IOF undercover unit drove up to their car and sprayed it with bullets.

Mohammad Shehada, 48, Issa Marzouq, Imad Al-Kamel, and Ahmad Balbul, 48, were killed in the attack.

Earlier Wednesday the IOF extra-judicially shot dead Palestinian anti-occupation activist Saleh Omar Qarqour, 27, in the village of Saida, near Tulkarem in the northern West Bank.

Qarqour was killed in an exchange of gunfire with IOF troops who had surrounded a house in Saida. Al Jazeera's correspondent Nour Odeh said that after the firefight, a bulldozer began to demolish the house without any forewarning, and recovered the body from the rubble, but left the body there when they left.

Shehada, a former member of Fatah, was a leading anti-occupation activist with the al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad. Balbul was a leading activist with al-Aqsa Brigades of Fatah. The other three victims were active members of Jihad.

Senior anti-occupation activist Muhammad Balbul, “wanted” by the IOF, was reportedly injured in Bethlehem in clashes.

The four victims in Bethlehem were “wanted” by the IOF for the last eight years.

According to the Palestinian Maan news agency, the IOF undercover unit entered Bethlehem in an area between the Cinema neighborhood and Duheisha refugee camp, close to the Mukataa compound, and opened fire on their car from another civilian car.

Passersby pulled the bodies of the four men from the small red car, which had been parked in front of a bakery when the Israelis opened fire.

According to one witnesses, the car appeared to have been “showered with bullets.”

The Palestinian security services said that they transferred the four dead bodies to Al-Hussein hospital in the neighboring Beit Jala city.

Hundreds of Palestinians gathered at the hospital, expressing their deep anger.

Shortly before their extra-judicial execution the four activists visited the offices of Ma'an earlier on Wednesday, saying: “The Israeli occupation doesn’t want to arrest us. Really, they want to assassinate us.”

As if foreseeing his own death, Shehada repeated this sentence to Ma'an's chief editor, Nasser Lahham.

Israeli bulldozers destroyed Shehada's house last Thursday night, immediately following the deadly shooting attack in Jerusalem.

Ma'an's chief editor, Nasser Lahham, spoke with Shehada at Bethlehem's Christmas Eve celebrations on Manger Square last December.

Shehada was smiling on Christmas Eve, radiating confidence: “The Palestinian people are capable of raising the flag of liberty and completing their mission. Israel has to realize that military occupation of Palestine does not solve its problems, either now or in the future.”

Asked about the US-backed peace initiative, Shehada said, “The Annapolis conference did not reach a brave level of addressing the Palestinian rights. It instead took us back to the Road Map plan trying to vision that the Palestinian problem was only one of security chaos, which every body knows is incorrect.”

Finally, asked why he rejected amnesty in favor of continuing with armed struggle, he said, “it is the revolutionaries who have the right to give amnesty to the occupation, and not the opposite.”

Islamic Jihad leader Nafez Azzam in Gaza denounced the killings: “This new crime reflects the true face of the occupation,” he said. “Killing still continues while they are talking about the possibility of bringing calm. But if they think that calm means Palestinian surrender, they are mistaken.”

“What the enemy has done undermines any talk of a ceasefire,” Dawud Shihab, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad in Gaza, told AFP.

The Islamic Jihad members, an Israeli military spokeswoman said, “took part in terrorist attacks in which there were many Israeli casualties.”

Separately the IOF before dawn Thursday handed the body of Alaa Abu Dhaim, 25, who killed seven Israelis in Jerusalem last Thursday, over to his family with orders to immediately and discreetly lay him to rest, which they did in Jabel Mukaber in Arab East Jerusalem.