Monday, June 5, 2006

Overnight, a senior mbr. of Hamas’s Izzeddin al-Qassam Brigades is killed in Jabaliya r.c. when a large bomb goes off nr. his home; no group takes responsibility. The IDF makes an air strike on a car driving in n. Gaza, assassinating PRC mbrs. Imad Asaliyya, Majdi Hammad, wounding 2 PRC mbrs. in the car, 2 bystanders; sends bulldozers, tanks 200 m into Gaza nr. Bureij r.c. to level land for the construction of a cement wall along the n. Gaza border; sends an undercover unit into ‘Anabta nr. Tulkarm in a car with Palestinian license plates to raid a caf´e and arrest 11 Palestinians; demolishes 2 Palestinian homes nr. Jenin, 1 nr. Jericho, 1 nr. Nablus; patrols in Maithalun, stopping Palestinians for random ID checks; conducts arrest raids, house searches in and around Nablus, in Tulkarm, and nr. Bethlehem, Jenin (firing on residential areas); issues military orders confiscating 600 d. of Palestinian land s. of Tulkarm, isolated btwn. the separation wall and the Green Line, for “security purposes”; accompanies an Israeli Archaeological Authority team into Battir nr. Bethlehem to conduct a test dig in the center of the village in search of Jewish historical remains. Gunmen affiliated with Hamas raid a Palestinian TV station in Khan Yunis, damage equipment, accusing the station of supporting Fatah at Hamas’s expense; the Hamas leadership denies the attack was authorized by the group. (MM 6/5; NYT 6/6; OCHA 6/7; PCHR 6/8)