Israel Expels Terror Kin
Israel expelled two Palestinians from the West Bank, driving them blindfolded into the Gaza Strip and leaving them at a deserted fig orchard Wednesday - the first time Israel has forced relatives of militants to leave their home areas.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat condemned the court-sanctioned expulsions as a "crime against humanity that violates all human and international laws."
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan echoed Arafat's assessment.
"Such transfers are strictly prohibited by international humanitarian law and could have very serious political and security implications," said Annan spokesman Fred Eckhard.
Annan also expressed concern over a recent wave of Palestinian civilian deaths in Israeli military attacks and reminded the Jewish state of its obligations under international humanitarian law to protect civilians.
"While the secretary-general has consistently condemned suicide bombings and upheld Israel's right to defend itself, he wishes to stress that self-defense cannot justify measures that amount to collective punishments," Eckhard told reporters at U.N. headquarters.
Israel's military maintains that the threat of sanctions against relatives is a powerful deterrent for Palestinian militants who might be planning attacks.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that for the first time in nearly two years of violence, he sees the possibility of a political settlement with the Palestinians because many now realize they cannot defeat Israel by force.
Expulsion is seen by the Palestinians as severe punishment. Palestinians live in extended families, are deeply rooted in their communities and are much less mobile than people in Western societies.
Also, Palestinians cannot move between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, which is separated by at least 25 miles of Israeli territory. Further, Gaza is fenced, making it easier for Israel to control. All suicide bombers in the past two years have come from the West Bank, where Palestinians can still reach Israel on back roads despite closures.
In a ruling Tuesday, Israel's Supreme Court sanctioned the practice of expelling relatives of attackers, but only if they pose a security threat to Israel. The court approved the expulsion of Intisar and Kifah Ajouri, siblings of bomb expert Ali Ajouri, but overturned an order against a third person.
Israel says Ali Ajouri sent two suicide bombers into Tel Aviv on July 17, where they blew themselves up, killing two Israelis and four foreign workers. Ajouri was killed later in an Israeli military strike.
The Israeli military spirited the Palestinians in armored vehicles to the orchard in Palestinian-controlled territory, avoiding Palestinian onlookers and reporters who waited at the Erez crossing point between Gaza and Israel for the arrival of the two.
Once inside Gaza, "they drove us for about 20 minutes," Intisar Ajouri said at a news conference in Gaza City, adding that she had been blindfolded. "Suddenly they took us out of the tanks and freed our hands and we found ourselves in the middle of a farm planted with figs and grapes.
"We walked until we saw a farmer," Intisar Ajouri said. "We asked him where we are. He told us that we are in a very dangerous place where four Palestinians were killed last week. The farmer told us, 'hurry, hurry before they (soldiers) shoot you'," she said.
The Israeli military said the two had each been given food, water and $212 as an "adjustment grant" for their two-year exile in Gaza.
Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said the military might expel additional relatives of terror suspects. After attacks in July, the military detained 19 relatives of suspected militants, hoping to ship them all to Gaza, but Israel's attorney general limited the measure to those directly involved in attacks.
The military feels that measures like expelling relatives and destroying family homes of attackers dissuade Palestinians from carrying out attacks. Plagued by more than 75 suicide bombings that have killed more than 250 people in nearly two years of fighting, the Israelis have been searching for measures to stop or at least limit the attacks.
The most recent suicide bombing was Aug. 4, and Israel insists that the lull in attacks results from tough military action, taking control of Palestinian cities and towns and clamping ever-tightening restrictions - not efforts by Palestinian security to stop militants.
Arafat has blamed Israel for the violence, saying it failed to carry out an agreement to ease tensions. "Unfortunately everything we face here is more and more Israeli escalation," he said after a meeting with Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Denmark holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, and the foreign minister is on a tour of Israel and the Palestinian areas to try to win acceptance of a peace plan that envisions Palestinian statehood by 2005. Moeller discussed the plan in separate meetings with Arafat and Sharon.
In an interview with Israel TV's Channel Two, Sharon said, "For the first time I see a possibility of opening the road to a political settlement" with the Palestinians.
Sharon has ruled out talks with Arafat, charging that he is responsible for terrorism, but said he could talk with "the Palestinians who have reached the conclusion that by terrorism nothing can be achieved."
Sharon also said Israel would not urge the United States to attack Iraq. "It is an American matter," he said, adding, "we fully support any American decision that will be adopted with regard to continuation of the war on terrorism."