"Israel" on Alert after Religious Extremist Seminary Attack
Source: Alalam.ir, 7-3-2008
AL-QUDS--The "Israeli" occupying regime imposed a security clampdown on Al-Quds and the West Bank Friday after a Palestinian killed eight Zionists at one of the most prominent religious extremist schools.
Early Friday, police arrested more than 10 relatives and friends of a Palestinian suspected of gunning down the Zionists, witnesses said.
Thursday night's attack came after more than a week of escalated "Israeli" killings in and around the Gaza Strip, where more than 130 Palestinians have been martyred in eight days.
The Merkaz Harav seminary has long been an ideological base for the illegal Zionist settler movement in the Palestinian territories.
Police also said that the man suspected of entering the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva in predominantly west Al-Quds late Thursday and opening fire with an automatic rifle came from the Jabal al-Mukaber area of east Al-Quds.
But relatives of Alaa Hisham Abu Dheim, 25, said they were informed by police that he was the author of the attack that killed eight yeshiva students and wounded another nine.
Dheim's father, who was among those detained, was released hours later, they said.
On Friday dozens of residents of Jabal al-Mukaber gathered in front of Dheim's house, which was adorned with a Palestinian flag, along with those of the Palestinian Hamas movement and the Lebanese Hizbullah group.
A funeral tent in which the family was to receive condolences was set up in front of the house.
Hamas hailed the "heroic operation" but stopped short of claiming responsibility.
Hamas spokesman, Taher al-Nunu, blamed the attack on the "Israeli" regime and its deadly military strikes in the impoverished territory.
"We have warned before about the responsibility of the escalation in Gaza and warned of Palestinian anger," Nunu said.
"Israeli" police set up road blocks and the army tightened restrictions on Palestinian travel in and from the occupied West Bank for 36 hours.
The occupying regime also deployed thousands of police in Al-Quds, spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said, and limited Palestinian access to Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third holiest site.
Police feared violence would break out in the Old City, where Jews and Muslims gathered for prayers. The Al-Aqsa mosque overlooks the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site.
The shooting followed a visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who refrained from condemning the recent "Israeli" spate of killings in Gaza.
Mark Regev, spokesman for the occupying regime prime minister Ehud Olmert, called on Abbas to do more to rein in resistance fighters.
The occupying regime has yet to meet its own commitments under a long-stalled "road map" to halt all settlement activity and to remove Jewish outposts in the occupied West Bank.
President George W. Bush, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Germany, France, Russia and Britain condemned the killings.
The United States accused Libya, backed by several other countries, of preventing the UN Security Council from condemning the assault.
A member of the Libyan delegation said the council should not speak about the Al-Quds attack while ignoring Gaza.
It was the highest "Israeli" death toll since April 17, 2006, when 11 people were killed and more than 60 wounded in a bombing during the Passover holiday in Tel Aviv.
In Lebanon, Hizbullah's al-Manar television carried a claim of responsibility from a previously unknown militant group, citing the cause of "Israeli" Arabs and people in Gaza.
Hizbullah had blamed "Israel" for the assassination last month of its senior commander Imad Moghnieh, and threatened to retaliate.
Shortly after the attack, the Zionist military carried out an airstrike in southern Gaza, killing four Palestinians, medics said.
Early on Friday, a Palestinian farmer was shot and martyred in the northern Gaza Strip.
AL-QUDS--The "Israeli" occupying regime imposed a security clampdown on Al-Quds and the West Bank Friday after a Palestinian killed eight Zionists at one of the most prominent religious extremist schools.
Early Friday, police arrested more than 10 relatives and friends of a Palestinian suspected of gunning down the Zionists, witnesses said.
Thursday night's attack came after more than a week of escalated "Israeli" killings in and around the Gaza Strip, where more than 130 Palestinians have been martyred in eight days.
The Merkaz Harav seminary has long been an ideological base for the illegal Zionist settler movement in the Palestinian territories.
Police also said that the man suspected of entering the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva in predominantly west Al-Quds late Thursday and opening fire with an automatic rifle came from the Jabal al-Mukaber area of east Al-Quds.
But relatives of Alaa Hisham Abu Dheim, 25, said they were informed by police that he was the author of the attack that killed eight yeshiva students and wounded another nine.
Dheim's father, who was among those detained, was released hours later, they said.
On Friday dozens of residents of Jabal al-Mukaber gathered in front of Dheim's house, which was adorned with a Palestinian flag, along with those of the Palestinian Hamas movement and the Lebanese Hizbullah group.
A funeral tent in which the family was to receive condolences was set up in front of the house.
Hamas hailed the "heroic operation" but stopped short of claiming responsibility.
Hamas spokesman, Taher al-Nunu, blamed the attack on the "Israeli" regime and its deadly military strikes in the impoverished territory.
"We have warned before about the responsibility of the escalation in Gaza and warned of Palestinian anger," Nunu said.
"Israeli" police set up road blocks and the army tightened restrictions on Palestinian travel in and from the occupied West Bank for 36 hours.
The occupying regime also deployed thousands of police in Al-Quds, spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said, and limited Palestinian access to Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third holiest site.
Police feared violence would break out in the Old City, where Jews and Muslims gathered for prayers. The Al-Aqsa mosque overlooks the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site.
The shooting followed a visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who refrained from condemning the recent "Israeli" spate of killings in Gaza.
Mark Regev, spokesman for the occupying regime prime minister Ehud Olmert, called on Abbas to do more to rein in resistance fighters.
The occupying regime has yet to meet its own commitments under a long-stalled "road map" to halt all settlement activity and to remove Jewish outposts in the occupied West Bank.
President George W. Bush, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Germany, France, Russia and Britain condemned the killings.
The United States accused Libya, backed by several other countries, of preventing the UN Security Council from condemning the assault.
A member of the Libyan delegation said the council should not speak about the Al-Quds attack while ignoring Gaza.
It was the highest "Israeli" death toll since April 17, 2006, when 11 people were killed and more than 60 wounded in a bombing during the Passover holiday in Tel Aviv.
In Lebanon, Hizbullah's al-Manar television carried a claim of responsibility from a previously unknown militant group, citing the cause of "Israeli" Arabs and people in Gaza.
Hizbullah had blamed "Israel" for the assassination last month of its senior commander Imad Moghnieh, and threatened to retaliate.
Shortly after the attack, the Zionist military carried out an airstrike in southern Gaza, killing four Palestinians, medics said.
Early on Friday, a Palestinian farmer was shot and martyred in the northern Gaza Strip.
