The Palestine Chronology

The IDF raids Jenin, assassinates wanted AMB Jenin leader Tahir Abu Kamil (also reported as Tha’ir Husayn), demolishing the house in which he was hiding, crushing him to death; fires on residential areas of Rafah; conducts arrest raids, house searches in Dura, severely beating a Palestinian woman, her 2 children. In Bayt Lahiya, the IDF surrounds and searches 35 bedouin homes, detains all males over age 16 for photographing and questioning, confiscates a computer, bulldozes 13 d. of surrounding land. Palestinians fire some 14 mortars at Gaza settlements, causing damage but no injuries. Some 70 armed Jewish settlers fr. Gaza’s Kefar Darom settlement seize, occupy, expel Palestinian families fr. 5 homes in Dayr al-Balah. (HA, JAZ, JP 12/25; NYT, WT 12/26; PR 12/29; PCHR 12/30)

The IDF conducts predawn arrest raids, house searches in Nablus in search of wanted Hamas activist Jafar Masri, arrests Masri’s wife and brother but does not find him. The IDF also begins work on a stretch of the separation wall outside of Husan; conducts arrest raids, house searches in Tulkarm r.c., Yatta; demolishes a Palestinian home nr. Nablus; bulldozes a Palestinian home, levels several others that were previously heavily damaged in Rafah; bulldozes 1.5 dunams of agricultural land nr. Khan Yunis; announces that it has arrested 4 bedouin, 7 Egyptians, a Nablus Palestinian allegedly involved in a scheme to smuggle weapons fr. Egypt to Nablus. Palestinian gunmen fire on an IDF bus outside Hermesh settlement nr. Baqa‘ al-Sharqiyya, wounding 1 IDF soldier. A Palestinian stabs, wounds 2 Israeli police officers in French Hill settlement in East Jerusalem, is arrested. The IDF evacuates an illegal settlement outpost nr. Hebron that has been evacuated 7 times previously (most recently on 3/31), says 5 more outposts are due to be removed soon. At the same time, 50 armed Jewish settlers fr. Kiryat Arba rampage through Palestinian areas of Hebron, vandalizing 6 Palestinian homes, injuring 4 Palestinians; IDF soldiers observe but do not intervene. Jewish settlers fr. Yitzhar bulldoze Palestinian land in neighboring ‘Ayn Abus. (HA, Israel Radio News 4/13; HA, NYT, WP 4/14; PCHR 4/15)