Israel May Expel Bombers' Relatives

Israel destroyed the family homes of two Palestinian militants and detained their relatives for possible exile Friday, a tactic meant to deter suicide attacks but decried by Palestinians as a crime against humanity.

"I see this as a war crime. I see this as a crime against humanity," Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said of the tactic, which Israel also used against suspected militants in the first Palestinian uprising of 1987-93.

Reeling from Palestinian attacks this week that killed 11 people in Israel and near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, the Israeli army destroyed the family homes of two wanted men, Nasser al-Din Assidi and Ali Ahmad al-Ajouri.

Witnesses said 22 people were left homeless in the overnight operation near the West Bank city of Nablus and that soldiers took 22 male relatives of the two militants into custody.

On the diplomatic front, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan said they were encouraged after a Thursdyay meeting at the White Hosue with both President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, said "every American official that we met said Israel cannot remain in these (West Bank and Gaza) territories."

The prince went on to condemn Ariel Sharon, claiming that to the Israeli Prime Minister, "a good Arab is a dead Arab."

Al-Faisal also said the Palestinians are considering a ceasefire to try to set the stage for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank.

Israel sees expulsions as a way to undermine what it sees as one of the incentives for would-be suicide bombers: benefits to their families. The militant group Hamas provides schooling and other benefits to its bombers' relatives, and the Iraqi government sends up to $25,000 to the families.

Hamas threatened to launch more attacks if the deportations were carried out.

In a statement, Hamas said it would respond to such a tactic with "a message of explosions and destruction into every place where (Hamas) cells, seekers of martyrdom, can reach."

Expelling relatives of militants would reflect calls in Israel for tougher measures to stop suicide bombings, although Israeli human rights group B'Tselem warned the government that the step would be illegal under international law.

Israeli security sources said the state's attorney general and military officials agreed Friday that exile -- from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip -- would be an option only for family members with a proven link to the plans for attack.

"The family members will be interrogated and whoever was connected to the attack, for example knew about it beforehand, would be considered an accomplice," a security source said.

"Anyone who was directly involved in planning an attack would be put in jail, but anyone with only a linkage could be punished and deported," the source said, acknowledging that relatives of militants would likely seek redress against deportation in Israel's Supreme Court.

Unlike the West Bank, Gaza is physically separated from Israel by a fence and there have been relatively few infiltration attacks from the area. No date was announced for banishing detained relatives.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher warned Israel against acting against the relatives of militants purely based on their family status and not on evidence of wrongdoing.

Boucher said that "taking punitive actions against innocent people will not solve Israel's security problems and we will be raising that issue with the Israelis."

Israeli security sources said Assidi was responsible for Tuesday's bus ambush near the Jewish settlement of Emmanuel in the West Bank in which eight people were killed and for an attack at the same spot in December in which 11 people died.

The sources said Ajouri was behind Wednesday's attack in Tel Aviv's foreign worker neighborhood in which two suicide bombers killed three people.

The Palestinian attacks ended a month of relative calm following Israel's reoccupation of seven Palestinian cities, underscoring the army's inability to stop attacks completely.

Daniel Taub, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the threat of moving family members to Gaza could be one way of denying bombers a "supportive environment" for their actions.

The country's leading dove, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, came out in favor of using exile as a weapon. Asked if he backed such a measure, he told Israel Radio: "As far as I know, it has undergone legal scrutiny, and if legally possible, yes."

In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security forces shot dead a man as he helped a fellow member of the militant Islamic Jihad group escape arrest, witnesses and Jihad officials said.

Mohammed al-Hindi, an Islamic Jihad leader, denounced the killing and called on the Palestinian Authority to bring to trial its own forces who were involved.

The Palestinian Authority condemned this week's ambush and suicide bombings -- the deadliest weapon in the 21-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.

At least 1,447 Palestinians and 559 Israelis have been killed since Palestinians began their revolt after negotiations for a final peace treaty envisaging a Palestinian state stalled.