Israel Kills Senior Hamas Commander in West Bank

Israeli commandos killed a West Bank commander of the militant group Hamas in a raid on Friday that could deal a blow to reformist Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas's battle for political survival.

An Israeli soldier was also killed and four wounded in the operation in the city of Nablus, which ended when soldiers blew up an apartment building where Mohammad al-Hanbali had been holed up, making 28 families homeless.

The spectacle of the seven-story structure crumpling in a heap of dust was likely to give ammunition to opponents of Abbas's efforts to promote a U.S.-backed peace plan and persuade President Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) to hand over control of Palestinian security forces.

The army said naval commandos, who also participate in ground-launched attacks, raided the building to detain Hanbali, 27, who opened fire at them from an elevator shaft where he had been hiding.

Israeli security sources said he was chief commander of Hamas militants in the northern West Bank and responsible for the deaths of dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings in a three-year-old Palestinian uprising for statehood.

The raid was launched a day after Abbas, a proponent of the faltering peace "road map," called on Palestinian legislators to back him or sack him.

The outcome of the Abbas-Arafat face-off could determine the fate of the peace plan that has been nearly erased by a surge of violence since the collapse last month of a truce militants declared in June.

In an apparent bid to defuse the crisis, the Palestinian parliament was due to follow an inconclusive meeting on Thursday with a closed-door session on Saturday to hear more from Abbas on his dispute with Arafat.

Israel has stepped up sweeps for militants in West Bank cities since the disintegration of the cease-fire underpinning the road map.

Accusing Abbas of failing to carry out a crackdown on militants mandated by the plan, Israel has also killed 11 Hamas men and four bystanders in helicopter missile strikes in the Gaza Strip (news - web sites), attacks Palestinians described as assassinations.

Abbas, 68, appointed by Arafat in April under international pressure but lacking his rival's grassroots popularity, pledged his commitment to the road map on Thursday but stopped short of asking for a vote of confidence to strengthen him.

Palestinian officials have accused Israel of sabotaging peace moves through army raids and by failing to pull troops back from West Bank cities under the terms of the road map.

The plan calls for an end to three years of violence and the start of mutual confidence-building steps leading to the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.

We need another PLO

Posted: September 2, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Joseph Farah

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

The world needs another PLO.

The illegal occupation of an Arab country by a foreign country has lasted too long – 27 years to be exact.

For part of that time, the invader used as an excuse the fact that another foreign country was occupying its neighbor. Three years ago, that second
foreign country withdrew all its forces. Still, the invader remains – imposing its will on a sovereign people, turning a once-peaceful nation into a
terrorist training camp and dividing and conquering the only Arab nation to know real freedom in my lifetime.

The occupied nation is Lebanon. The occupier is Syria.

So, why do we need another PLO?

It seems the only way the world will take seriously the plight of the Lebanese people is to follow the bad example of the Palestine Liberation
Organization.

That's why today I am calling for the formation of the Phoenician Liberation Organization and declaring myself chairman for life. I demand Syria's
occupying forces leave my beloved Lebanon.

Who am I, a Lebanese-American, to make such a demand?

Yasser Arafat is an Egyptian. No one questions his credentials as a Palestinian. Don't question my Lebanese, or "Phoenician," standing.

You say Phoenicians have been extinct for centuries? Arafat has resurrected an extinct people known as Philistines, which he claims as ancestors.

And, more importantly, Lebanon is a real country, with a real history – a nation that still exists. Arafat's Palestine has never existed as a nation-state
in the history of the world.

While Arafat fights not for freedom, but for death and destruction of the Jewish people, this new PLO would fight only for freedom and
independence for Lebanon.

Arafat has become one of the wealthiest men in the world playing his game of terrorist extortion. He funnels billions of dollars sent to him to aid his
people and his cause into his own personal bank accounts.

Still, the world is infatuated with the plight of Arafat's imaginary Palestinians. So, I hope the formation of the Phoenician Liberation Organization will
give the world a reason to care about Lebanon.

It's clear the world – including the United States – is not going to lift a finger to help the real people of Lebanon. Perhaps the Lebanese need an angle
to attract attention to their plight.

Thus, the new PLO.

And we don't need to make up stories of oppression and homeland theft as Arafat did to make the case for a free Lebanon.

Between 20,000 and 35,000 Syrian troops deny Lebanon – one of only two Middle East nations with a recent history of representative government –
its sovereignty and freedom. In addition to the military force, Syria has encouraged the emigration of some 1 million of its citizens to Lebanon,
straining the economy and altering the demographics of the country.

In addition, under Syrian control, Lebanon has become a haven for terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations. It has
become a major producer of heroin and other drugs.

Syrian domination has resulted in the worst imaginable human-rights abuses. People just disappear off the streets. Lebanon once boasted the freest
press in the Middle East. Today, it's gone, replaced by official and semi-official voices only.

Syria has occupied Lebanon since 1976. President Hafez Assad has died and his son, Bashar, has assumed control in Damascus. Yet there is not even
the slightest indication that Syria is interested in negotiating a withdrawal – let alone proceeding in the direction of a good-faith, unilateral pullout.

Arafat's PLO demanded the creation of a state that never existed. All my PLO requires is the freeing of a nation that has always existed. Here are my
PLO's demands:

Syria must leave Lebanon forever.

Terrorist groups like Hezbollah must be disarmed.

Lebanon must be restored to its structure of representative government by allowing freedom of worship and free elections.

Simple. No hidden agendas. No shakedown efforts. No genocidal plans.

Who will come to the aid of this PLO?

Israelis blow up apartment block after gun battle
05/09/2003 - 10:18:39

Israeli troops killed a Palestinian militant and arrested three during a West Bank gun battle today before blowing up the seven storey apartment building where the men had been hiding.

Several loud blasts were heard during the two hour battle in Nablus, the West Bank’s largest town.

The military said the wanted men threw grenades. Israeli soldiers blew up the badly damaged building, which had been evacuated, bringing down the tall structure that housed 28 apartments.

The army was checking whether the dead Palestinian was Mohammed Hanbali, leader of the military wing of the town’s Islamic Hamas group.

Soldiers took Hanbali’s father to see the body, but he could not make an identification because the dead man was badly disfigured.

The raid came a day after Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, weakened by a power struggle with Yasser Arafat, told parliament it must either back him or sack him.

MPs will meet twice in coming days to decide whether to hold a confidence vote that could topple the unpopular Abbas and deliver a major blow to an already troubled US backed peace plan.

An Israeli soldier was killed and four others were wounded, one critically, in the gun battle.

Israel has intensified its hunt for militants since a last month’s Hamas suicide bombing on a Jerusalem bus.

A 27-year-old Israeli man wounded in that attack died today, bringing the total killed to 22 people.

Israel has said it will not rest until Palestinian security forces start dismantling Hamas, Islamic Jihad and armed groups with ties to Arafat’s Fatah movement.

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