By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
Jun 25, 2004
British intelligence has of late praised PA anti-terror efforts, but it was Israel’s security services this week that thwarted a major Jerusalem homicide bomb attack and two terrorist infiltration attempts in the Gaza Strip.
On Tuesday evening, General Security Service (Shin Bet) agents operating in a PA-controlled village north of Jerusalem arrested three terrorists who led them to a 10-kilogram bomb they planned to detonate in the capital later that night.
The terrorists all belonged to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organization.
Overnight Wednesday, IDF troops in the Gaza Strip shot dead three “Palestinian” terrorist gunmen attempting to infiltrate an army outpost and a Jewish community in two separate incidents.
In response to the planned Jerusalem bombing, a large contingent of IDF ground forces moved into the biblical Samarian town of Shechem Thursday in an open-ended arrest operation targeting the Fatah infrastructure, Army Radio reported.
War on terror
IDF infantry and armored forces rumbled into the biblical Samarian town of Shechem Thursday morning in an operation aimed at arrested as many high-level Tanzim and Al Aqsa Brigade terrorists as possible.
Dubbed “Operation Full Court Press,” the raid was the largest launched in Samaria in more than a year.
As soldiers entered Shechem’s old city, they passed out leaflets requesting the local population help them apprehend the wanted men so the siege and curfew could be lifted.
"Help us catch them because they are the ones who are causing damage to Nablus," read the leaflet distributed by the army.
Target:Jerusalem
The open-ended Shechem operation was launched in response to a foiled “Palestinian” homicide bombing that was supposed to take place in Jerusalem this week.
An 18-year-old terrorist belonging to the Al Aqsa Brigades — a wing of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement — was arrested by troops at a checkpoint on the northern outskirts of the capital Tuesday.
He later led soldiers to his 10-kilogram bomb, which he planned to detonate among civilians in downtown Jerusalem that same evening.
The bomber was a resident of Shechem.
Battlefield Gaza
Overnight Wednesday, Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip thwarted two attempted terrorist infiltrations.
In northern Gaza, two armed “Palestinians” were shot dead as they tried to enter the Jewish community of Dugit.
In the southern part of the Strip, an Arab terrorist was killed attempting to infiltrate an army outpost.
British propaganda
A report by British intelligence released over the past month has apparently praised the Palestinian Authority for its recent minimal efforts to curb the terrorism perpetrated by those living in areas under its control.
The report was referred to enthusiastically by Arafat during an interview with Israel’s leftist Ha’aretz newspaper last week.
But Israel’s defense minister told the cabinet this week that 11 “Palestinian” homicide bomb attacks had been thwarted in recent weeks not by the PA, but rather as a result of relentless Israeli anti-terror efforts.
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told a senior US official Thursday that it was unlikely Arafat would allow any “Palestinian” leader to truly combat terrorism as long as he is in a position to affect events.