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Israeli forces arrested a Hamas leader in a West Bank raid Monday and said they had arrested a group of Israeli Arabs accused of helping a Palestinian suicide bomber blow up a commuter bus.
The arrest of seven Israeli Arabs, two of whom Israel believes chose the target of the bombing in northern Israel three weeks ago, fueled the country's concern over the role of its Arab citizens in a 23-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.
Nine people were killed at the Meron Junction when the bomber blew himself up in a bus filled with Jews and Arabs.
"At a certain stage they became the initiators and the executors of the attack, without pulling the trigger," Israeli police chief in the Galilee Yehuda Solomon told reporters.
Israeli soldiers in armored vehicles Monday entered the Jenin refugee camp, scene in April of the bloodiest fighting in the Palestinian uprising, and arrested Abdel Salam Abu el-Heijah, leader of Hamas in the Jenin region, witnesses said.
One-armed el-Heijah tops Israel's list of most-wanted militants in the northern West Bank.
Israeli security sources said he was behind three suicide bombings that killed 39 people in Israel. Several other suspected militants were also arrested in the raid.
El-Heijah told Reuters earlier he lost his left arm in a clash between Hamas members and the Israeli army in Jenin early this year. He had been in hiding in Jenin or outlying villages since then.
ISRAEL STEPS UP RAIDS
Citing what it called persistent intelligence warnings of suicide attacks, Israeli forces resumed raids in the West Bank at the weekend amid an apparent stalemate over how to broaden a gradual truce plan.
The so-called "Gaza-Bethlehem First" arrangement, under which Israeli forces left Bethlehem last week, is viewed as a test for a wider withdrawal and truce in the Palestinian uprising.
But Israel has not carried out a pledge to ease military closures in the Gaza Strip amid new violence there and an agreement for a withdrawal from Hebron foundered at the weekend.
Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer denied the plan had been shelved but said Palestinian security services had not done enough to live up to their end of the deal.
"It is not dead. It lives. How can you expect a complete change in the situation in two days after a conflict running (almost) two years? I expect efforts from them," he said.
Palestinian officials have accused Israel of freezing further withdrawals from the remaining six West Bank cities it occupied in June after two suicide bombings in Israel.
Palestinian and Israeli officials resumed security talks on Monday at the fortified Erez crossing between Israel and Gaza, but no details on the meeting were immediately available.
(China Daily August 27, 2002)
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