'Settlers to attack holy sites'
from: The Austrailian January 06, 2005
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,11863386,00.html
Nicolas Rothwell, Jerusalem
WITH campaigning for Sunday's Palestinian elections approaching its
climax, and plans for the Gaza pull-out in full swing, the head of
Israel's Shin Bet intelligence agency issued a dire warning yesterday
of possible violent attacks on Israeli soldiers and Muslim sites by
settler militias.
And as Israelis and Palestinians prepare for a new phase in their
tortuous relations, the constant Arab-Israeli skirmishing that
shadows the election flared.
The brutal truth is that the intifada continues in full swing, with
Israeli forces on high alert to control violence.
Six Palestinian militants were arrested in operations across Gaza and
the West Bank, among them an armed Hamas fighter captured near the
Sufa crossing close to Gaza.
In a separate attack at the main Erez crossing, a Palestinian was
killed in an exchange of fire after he threw grenades at an Israeli
soldier.
Two more missiles were fired early yesterday at a factory near Gaza,
largely destroying it, while a prominent Islamic Jihad fugitive was
arrested on the West Bank.
This punch and counter-punch followed a much more striking episode,
which is still reverberating in the Palestinian election campaign.
Persistent mortar fire from within Gaza prompted Israeli forces to
retaliate early on Tuesday. But in their attack on the Palestinian
firing positions they killed seven civilians, including six young
members of a farming family.
The front-runner for the Palestinian presidency, Mahmoud Abbas, who
was in Gaza, promptly told a crowd of 1000 that the "martyrs have
been killed by the shells of the Zionist enemy", a phrase that
sparked an instant frisson of displeasure in Jerusalem.
The brief, tacit pre-election honeymoon between Mr Abbas and the
Israeli Government has been under strain over the past few days, as
the candidate courts the backing of radical groups across the West
Bank and Gaza.
But the chief threat to the peace blueprint of Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon and his new-minted coalition may well come from
extremists within Israel, rather than the terror cells in the
Palestinian camp.
Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter yesterday presented the Israeli parliament
with a bleak overview of the security situation. His briefing came
just a day after sharp clashes between Israeli troops and West Bank
settlers.
Mr Dichter said far-Right settler activists in secret
cells -- possibly several dozen strong, supported by hundreds of
backers -- were planning to create pretexts to fire on troops
during the planned evacuations. The spreading of false rumours and
the use of fake blood to create the impression of being wounded were
among their plans.
He also gave a fresh airing to a nightmare scenario: a strike by
settlers against the Muslim mosques on Jerusalem's Temple Mount,
the third holiest shrine of the Islamic world. The settler activists,
he warned, "were characterised by an anti-government ideology that
espouses the use of violence for the achievement of political and
ideological aims".
Mr Dichter's assessment of security in Gaza was equally gloomy.
Not only did he advise that a full Israeli withdrawal from the border
region with Egypt at Gaza's southern edge would turn the region into
"another southern Lebanon", he said he expected a new Palestinian
government to continue sheltering terrorists.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,11863386,00.html
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