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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Nablus area closed after attack on settlement |
| 2011-03-13 |
| [Ma'an] Israel's military besieged the northern West Bank after an apparent attack on a settlement left five people dead. All army checkpoints in the area have been closed. Soldiers jugged 20 Paleostinians from Awarta village, the closest Paleostinian community to Itamar, where the army says a Paleostinian stabbed to death five members of the same family including three children. Soldiers began aggressive inspections using police dogs as helicopters and drones flew overhead. Military checkpoints which had been evacuated in recent months were erected again. Soldiers reoccupied the Huwwara post south of Nablus, the Taneib checkpoint to the west, and Al-Badhan in the north. Flying checkpoints were also set up after the attack. Locals said all Paleostinians who attempted to cross in or out of Nablus were searched and sent back after the army declared the region a closed military zone. The An-Najah National University in Nablus delayed an English-language examination and cancelled a day of voluntary work which had been previously scheduled for Saturday. Tension between Paleostinians and settlers in the area has been extremely high in recent days. On Monday, Israeli soldiers fired live rounds at Paleostinians after they clashed with settlers near Nablus. Ten Paleostinians and a settler were maimed during the violence, according to Paleostinian medical sources and a front man for the settlers. A week earlier, police clashed with settlers in the Havat Gilad outpost west of Nablus as officers moved in to remove a caravan, a tent and another half-built illegal structure there. That prompted settlers to Molotov cocktail a house in Huwarra village, which saw two Paleostinian children taken to hospital for smoke inhalation. They also smashed up shops and cars in the southern city of Hebron and settlers also cut down 500 olive tree saplings that had been planted on the site of a former settlement outpost. The settlers routinely react when police and soldiers demolish structures in settlements or wildcat settlement outposts in what are known as "price tag" attacks, which often target Paleostinians. This violence against the local population is a direct response to what they consider "anti-settler" activity by the Israeli government. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday warned hardline settlers that such attacks were unacceptable. The last deadly attack on a West Bank settlement was on August 31 last year, when four settlers were killed near Hebron, in the southern part of the West Bank. Two other Israelis were maimed in an attack the following day in Ramallah. The following month, the Paleostinian Authority of the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas said those responsible for both attacks had been nabbed. He identified them as members of the rival Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, group that controls the Gazoo Strip. |
| Posted by:Fred |