Ahmed Alhaj Ali’s tumultuous week started with his detention by Palestinian forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and ended with him shuttling from safe house to safe house to evade Israeli arrest. Forces loyal to Abbas have detained at least 299 Hamas supporters in the West Bank in the last three weeks, according to a Hamas official.
Israeli forces seized a Palestinian Cabinet minister and 32 other officials in the occupied West Bank and launched air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, stepping up a campaign against Hamas Islamists. The overnight arrests came after Hamas and other groups rebuffed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s call for a halt to rocket attacks by Gaza militants.
Israeli troops killed a top militant commander in the West Bank on Thursday, while Palestinian fighters in Gaza renewed rocket attacks that had largely stopped during Israel’s Lebanon war. While a truce has halted fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, violence between the Jewish state and Palestinian militants shows no sign of subsiding.
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/ 15 September 2004
Five Palestinian militants were killed on Wednesday during a gunbattle after Israeli forces launched a pre-dawn raid in the northern West Bank town of Nablus, security sources said. The victims, four of whom were members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, were shot dead after troops had encircled a house in the Old City area.
Sharon hints that Arafat may be killed
Three people were killed by the Israeli army on Wednesday, as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon went on the counter-offensive against stinging corruption allegations which have damaged his standing just three weeks ahead of general elections.
Israel asks SA to probe Sharon loan
Israeli tanks rolled into Nablus early on Wednesday and seized total control of the northern West Bank town, arresting at least 30 Palestinians in a stepped up retaliation for a kibbutz shooting which killed five Israelis.