Israel Moves Into Palestinian Area
HEBRON, West Bank (AP) - Israeli forces moved into a Palestinian neighborhood in the tense, divided West Bank city of Hebron, destroying two buildings before withdrawing early Friday, one of the deepest and most politically sensitive incursions in 11 months of fighting.
In gunfire exchanges around the incursion, 15 Palestinians were wounded, one critically, Palestinian doctors said. Palestinians also said four Israeli soldiers were wounded and three vehicles destroyed. The Israeli military said one soldier was lightly wounded.
Pictures taken by Jewish settlers across from the Abu Sneineh neighborhood showed explosions destroying the two buildings lighting up the midnight sky. Palestinians said the buildings had been empty for some time and were used as gunfire positions by armed Palestinians.
Israeli jeeps and armored personnel carriers moved in to destroy the buildings after two Israeli brothers were shot and wounded in the Jewish neighborhood, the military said.
A single bullet passed through the hand of one of the brothers and pierced the chest of the other, an 11-year-old boy, settlers said. Hospital officials said he was moderately wounded.
Israeli army spokesman Lt. Col. Olivier Rafowicz said Israeli forces had no intention of remaining after destroying the buildings. He said the pullout was ``not related to Palestinian resistance.'' Exchanges of gunfire continued late into the night.
However, Maj. Gen. Moshe Yaalon said Friday that the military might move back in and remain on the hill. ``If the situation becomes unbearable, it's possible that we'll have to stay up there in order to assure that there will be no shooting from that hill,'' he told Israel radio.
Palestinian official Abbas Zaki denounced the Israeli incursion. He said Palestinian resistance forced the Israelis to pull out. ``We taught them a lesson,'' he told The Associated Press, adding that the peace negotiation process has been destroyed and ``all options are open to us.''
In another Israeli operation late Thursday, Israeli forces entered Palestinian territory in Gaza after a mortar shell hit a house at a Jewish settlement. Military chief of staff Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz said soldiers ``acted quickly, hitting a Palestinian command post, hit everyone who was there.'' There was no immediate Palestinian comment.
Hebron is the only West Bank city divided into Israeli and Palestinian sections, because of the three Israeli enclaves. About 500 settlers are heavily guarded by Israeli soldiers and paramilitary border police, who control about 20 percent of the city.
The Israeli-controlled section includes about 30,000 Palestinians, who have been kept under almost constant curfew throughout the fighting. Palestinian police and security patrol the rest of the city. About 130,000 Palestinians live in Hebron.
The settlers, including many militants, charge that the military has not done enough to stop the gunfire that comes almost daily from Abu Sneineh and other Palestinian vantage points overlooking the Jewish enclaves. In March, a 10-month old Jewish baby was shot and killed.
Palestinians say the settlers constantly attack them and destroy their property. The Palestinians demand that all the settlers be removed.
Even before the Israeli incursion, Hebron was considered one of the main flashpoints in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, a city where religious fervor multiplies political differences.
Jews and Muslims uneasily share the city's holy site, the traditional burial cave of the biblical Abraham, ancestor of both religions. It was physically divided into separate prayer halls after a Jewish settler killed 29 Muslim worshippers in a gunfire attack in 1994. Jews and Muslims follow a strict prayer schedule there, under Israeli military control.
Hebron was divided into zones in a 1997 agreement, two years after Israel started turning Palestinian population centers over to Palestinian civilian control.
The Israeli incursion into Hebron was the largest operation in Palestinian-controlled areas since the handover. An Aug. 14 incursion into the West Bank town of Jenin ended after Israeli bulldozers destroyed a police compound.
Earlier incursions have drawn stiff criticism from the United States and other nations. Palestinians have labeled the operations Israeli aggression and are demanding creation of a force of international observers to protect them from the Israelis.
In Gaza on Thursday, an 11-year-old Palestinian boy was killed by Israeli gunfire. Palestinians said Israeli soldiers opened fire on Palestinians who were throwing stones at a Jewish settlement. The Israeli military said they were trying to tear down a fence around the settlement, but the Palestinians denied that.
Originally published August 24, 2001.
