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Newsletter : 2fax0130.txt
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>Israel Faxx
>JN Jan. 30, 2002, Vol. 10, No. 20
Israel Considers Jerusalem Security Plan
By VOA News
Israeli leaders are considering ways to protect Israelis in Jerusalem from further Palestinian terror attacks without physically dividing the city.
The office of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the plan under discussion would ring Jerusalem with security safeguards. Public Security Minister Uzi Landau said the plan aims to provide a barrier between "Jerusalem and the Arab congestion around it."
Landau denied there would be any sort of wall separating the Jewish west of the city and East Jerusalem - the Palestinian areas captured and annexed by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
Senior Palestinian Authority official Yasser Abed Rabbo was quoted by Arutz Sheva news as calling the new "enveloping Jerusalem" plan another "escalation in Israeli terrorism." He warned that the Israeli plan sought to "create facts on the ground," while seeking to once again take "Palestinian lands and interrupt any attempt at territorial continuity."
Israel has built extensively on the annexed land to cement its claim to the area, also claimed by Palestinians as their future capital. Israeli media say the security plan for Jerusalem includes installation of sophisticated detection equipment including thermal sensors and video cameras, roadblocks, special traffic routes and hundreds of more police.
The plan was submitted after Sunday's bomb attack by a Palestinian woman and a shooting attack by a Palestinian man on the same Jerusalem street five days earlier.
In the West Bank, Israeli troops backed by tanks seized three men during a raid into a Palestinian-ruled village near Bethlehem early Monday. The Israeli army said it arrested a senior member of Islamic Jihad and two other Palestinians suspected of involvement in terrorist activities.
Palestinian sources said at least four Palestinians were wounded in an exchange of gunfire before soldiers withdrew from Irtas. Later in the day, Israeli forces entered Palestinian-ruled territory in the Gaza Strip and occupied a village council building.
Some Israeli Reservists Refuse Territories Duty
By VOA News
More than 50 Israeli army reservists, all of them combat veterans and many of them officers, have signed a petition refusing to serve any more in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The soldiers said they are willing to defend their country, but they would not take part in what the petition calls the oppression and occupation of the Palestinians. The petition was published in Israeli newspapers.
Army Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz condemned the petition and said it is not admissible for reservists to decide which tasks they will carry out and which they will not. He described signing of the document by military reservists as a very serious matter.
Israel has received international criticism for the alleged use of excessive force in combating the current Palestinian uprising. More than 1,000 have died since the violence erupted in September 2000, more than three-quarters of them Palestinians.
Israel answers the criticism by saying it must stop would-be terrorists in Palestinian-ruled areas to stop deadly attacks in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.
The dissenting soldiers said they hope to gather 500 signatures on their petition in the coming weeks to press their view. In the past 16 months, one Israeli pacifist movement said at least 400 reservists have refused to join their units in the occupied territories. About 40 of them have been given relatively brief jail terms.
Most Israeli men are required to serve as army reservists for several weeks a year until they are 45 years old.
El Al: Another Major Security Blunder
By IsraelNationalNews.com
For the second time in 48 hours, El Al and Ben-Gurion International Airport officials have been exposed in another major security blunder.
The first case dealt with a teenage kibbutz volunteer who managed to have his suitcase placed on board a flight from Tel Aviv to Johannesburg, despite it containing a military illumination flare. The youth told the flight crew about the 52mm flare before takeoff and the suitcase was removed.
The second case, a passenger had a pistol inside his carry-on, but
was unaware it was in the bag. The bag did pass through X-ray, but
the handgun went undetected. Only after arriving at his New York
City destination did the man find the weapon. He immediately
notified the Israeli Consulate to ask what he should do. The
consulate took the weapon and turned it over to local police. The
West Bank resident has since returned home but New York police are
still holding the weapon.
The two cases come at a time when security experts in Israel
continue to warn the current security provisions in Ben-Gurion are
not adequate for today's terrorist climate.
The Director-General of the Ports Authority, Gabi Ofir, has established an investigation committee that will work with the GSS (General Security Service 'Shin/Bet') to evaluate the current security status in the airport and Israel's El Al Airline.
An El Al spokesman stated that a third party would be investigating the security failures and the airline would comply with the findings and recommendations of the investigating body.
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