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Newsletter : 1fax0717.txt
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>JN July 17, 2001, Vol. 9, No. 120
EU Calls On Israel To Accept Deployment Of Neutral Monitors
By VOA News
The European Union has calling on Israel to accept the deployment of neutral monitors to help ease what the union calls dangerous tensions with the Palestinians.
The EU ministers stressed that such a mechanism could only come into effect with the support of both the Israelis and Palestinians. Israel has been rejecting the idea of monitors.
Suicide Bombing in Israel
By VOA News
A Palestinian suicide bomber has killed himself and two other people at a train station in Israel. At least nine other people were wounded by the blast in the town of Binyamina, north of Tel Aviv.
The Palestinian group Islamic Jihad released a statement claiming responsibility. It said the operation was retaliation for Israeli attacks against Palestinians and Israel's kidnapping of an Islamic Jihad activist in the West Bank on Sunday.
An Israeli spokesman said there will be an immediate response to the bombing, and he complained that Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat has done nothing to stop terrorism.
Earlier in the West Bank, Israeli tanks pushed into a Palestinian-controlled section of the divided city of Hebron and destroyed at least four Palestinian security positions. Israeli troops conducted a similar raid into the Palestinian town of Tulkarm and exchanged fire with Palestinians.
Israel said the incursions were a response to Palestinian gunfire. Palestinians say at least nine Palestinians were wounded in Hebron and another in Tulkarm.
The blast at the Israeli train station came as the Maccabiah Games, with Jewish athletes from around the world, were getting under way in Jerusalem with a festive opening ceremony.
Early Monday, Israeli police found the bodies of two Palestinians who were killed, apparently while preparing a bomb about one-half mile from the Teddy (Kolleck) Stadium. The men, believed to be from the Bethlehem area, died as they were preparing a bomb aimed to go off around the opening ceremony.
The police believe that the two, ages 19 and 21, did not have any intention of acting as suicide bombers but were preparing the bomb to be placed somewhere.
The Maccabiah opening ceremony, which began at 1:30 p.m. EDT, was heavily guarded with some 1,000 police securing the 22,000-seat Teddy Stadium.
Attendance at the 16th Maccabiah is down dramatically as a result of the security situation with many of the participants having decided to stay home. As a result, some of the sporting events have been canceled and others have been scaled back.
Suicide Bombers' Tactics for Maximum Civilian Deaths by Amos Harel (Courtesy of Ha'aretz)
Interrogations of terrorists who were apprehended by the Israel Defense Forces before they could execute suicide strike plans in Israel have established that the Palestinian attackers come with detailed preparations and guidelines.
The terrorists' interrogators have drawn a series of conclusions from previous suicide strike attempts. These include:
* Seeking out large public shopping or leisure venues, to attack crowds of civilians.
* Synchronizing the detonation of an explosive with the gathering of a line at the entrance to a large public venue, as in the case of two particularly lethal terror attacks, one at the Tel Aviv Dolphinarium (21 civilian deaths) and one at the Netanya mall (five civilian deaths).
* Avoiding security check areas by finding an area at some distance from security personnel to detonate explosives.
Israeli security officials appear to have obtained most of the new information about suicide strike preparations via interrogations of two young men who were seized in Ramallah three weeks ago.
The two were sent on suicide missions by Mohammed Bisharat, a terror operative from the Jenin region whom Israel killed in July in an air force helicopter attack.
Since the start of the Intifada last September, some 50 terror attacks within the Green Line have been attempted.
IDF officers believe that most of these failed to exact heavy casualties because of "professional failures" which arose in the preparation of explosives, or due to the behavior of the terrorists themselves while on assignment.
A few terror attacks planned for within the Green Line failed recently on account of faulty planning and execution by the terrorist organizations.
For instance, the 17-year-old terrorist caught last week by three policemen in Afula while in possession of a 44-pound, nail-studded explosive was unable to detonate the lethal device due to a technical fault.
Israeli security officials note that there are mounting intelligence alerts about plans harbored by terror groups to strike within the Green Line in days to come.
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