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Israel's Netanyahu Urges
Arafat's Removal

By Matt Spetalnick
11-11-2

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Monday for the removal of Yasser Arafat's administration after a Palestinian gunman killed five Israelis, including a mother and her two children, in a kibbutz.
 
The hawkish ex-premier, appointed last week after the collapse of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's broad coalition, raised the specter of military retaliation that could complicate a new U.S. peace mission that began hours after he spoke.
 
A gunman slipped overnight into Kibbutz Metzer, near the dividing line between northern Israel and the West Bank, and opened fire, killing a woman visitor and its administrator in a rare raid on an Israeli collective farm.
 
The militant then burst into a house, shooting dead a 34-year-old mother in the doorway of her children's room and killing two sons aged four and five as they held bedding over their heads.
 
On Monday, Avi Ohayon staggered through the toy-filled room where his ex-wife and children died, then collapsed on a mattress when he spotted several small objects on a bed. "God help me," he screamed. "They killed a child who had a pacifier."
 
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Arafat's Fatah group, claimed responsibility. It said it was avenging Israel's killing of an Islamic militant leader, and vowed "more martyrdom attacks until occupation leaves our land."
 
Arafat's Palestinian Authority expressed "strong condemnation of the killing of civilians" at the kibbutz while saying it was carried out while a "brutal war machine" was killing Palestinian men, women and children in occupied territories.
 
PEACE MISSION
 
The mostly left-wing, dovish residents of Kibbutz Metzer were long known for seeking Jewish-Arab cooperation and backing a future peace agreement envisaging Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, where Palestinians are fighting occupation.
 
"We will not cease to believe in co-existence," Doron Lieber, a kibbutz official, told mourners at Monday's funeral.
 
The attack, likely to trigger an Israeli military response, threw a cloud over a mission launched on Monday by U.S. envoy David Satterfield to push a new peace "roadmap."
 
The proposal, part of efforts by an international "Quartet" made up of U.S., European Union, United Nations and Russian mediators, has drawn reservations from Palestinian officials and Israeli cabinet ministers, including Netanyahu.
 
Israel, as always, said the Palestinian leadership was to blame for the attack for failing to rein in militants waging a two-year-old uprising against Israeli occupation.
 
Palestinian leaders say their security services cannot do so because they have been crippled by Israeli army offensives and clampdowns on West Bank cities and their hinterland.
 
Netanyahu, challenging Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for leadership of their rightist Likud party before an early general election set for January 28, reminded Israelis he had been long called for "the expulsion of Arafat's terror regime."
 
He told Army Radio that Israel "would find the proper time to do so," but taking such action depended on "international developments currently under way" -- apparently alluding to preparations for possible U.S.-led war to disarm Iraq.
 
Local media have speculated Israel might expel Arafat in the heat of a U.S. campaign to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Sharon has promised President Bush, who wants to avoid inflaming the Arab world, not to harm or depose Arafat.
 
But he may face growing right-wing pressure to act in the run-up to elections to be held nine months ahead of schedule.
 
An Israeli security source said Sharon and his new defense minister, ex-army chief Shaul Mofaz, would discuss a "measured" military response. Mofaz, accompanying Sharon on a visit to the kibbutz, said: "We must do our utmost to prevent these kinds of incidents and ensure we get the murderers."
 
CHILDREN KILLED ON BOTH SIDES
 
In a stark reminder of how children on both sides have suffered during two years of bloodshed, Palestinian hospital officials said Mohammed Abu Naja, eight, died of his wounds from Israeli shelling in the Gaza Strip on October 17.
 
He was the seventh Palestinian civilian death stemming from the incident, which the Israeli army said was a response to gunmen firing on Israeli bulldozers. Militants say their attacks on Israelis are vengeance for Israeli raids.
 
The raid at Metzer was one of the few times militants have struck a kibbutz during their revolt.
 
The kibbutz's security chief told reporters he shot at the gunman but he managed to escape.
 
At least 1,654 Palestinians and 631 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian revolt erupted in September 2000 after U.S.-brokered talks on Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza stalled.
 
 
Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
 
 
 





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