- "After similar army raids in the past, settlers
simply rebuilt demolished structures after soldiers left. 'You really need
a microscope to see the differences before and after. A few days later,
everything is back in place.'"
-
- JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli
troops tore down part of a synagogue at a West Bank settlement outpost
Tuesday but made no attempt to move adjacent trailer homes, prompting accusations
the government isn't serious about meeting U.S. demands to dismantle dozens
of the outlawed sites.
-
- Demolition on a far greater scale took place in the Gaza
Strip, where army bulldozers smashed 25 houses and flattened a mosque in
a Palestinian refugee camp, leaving 400 people homeless, local officials
said.
-
- The military said it targeted buildings from which shots
were fired at Israeli forces, but did not know how many structures were
demolished.
-
- Also on Tuesday, Israeli planes attacked two Hezbollah
guerrilla bases in south Lebanon, the Israeli military said. There were
no reports of casualties, Lebanese security officials said.
-
- The evening airstrike followed a border incident Monday,
in which Hezbollah guerrillas fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli
bulldozer clearing explosives, killing an Israeli soldier and seriously
wounding another.
-
- At the West Bank outpost of Tapuah West, about 150 Jewish
activists put up token resistance against hundreds of soldiers and riot
police, burning tires and erecting flimsy barricades of stones on the road
leading to the isolated hilltop.
-
- It was the first move by the army to clear a structure
from a populated outpost since June, when soldiers and police got into
a bloody fistfight with settlers as they tried to dismantle shacks and
tents at Mitzpeh Yitzhar, another West Bank outpost.
-
- The wooden synagogue and study center at Tapuah West
was dedicated to the memory and teachings of American-Israeli Meir Kahane,
whose anti-Arab Kach movement is on the State Department list of terror
organizations and has been outlawed as racist by the Israeli government.
-
- Kahane was assassinated by an Egyptian in New York in
1990.
-
- Supporters of the Kahane memorial project watched angrily
as soldiers wrestled a large metal safe-like object onto the blade of an
armored bulldozer.
-
- They said the strongbox contained a Torah scroll, a hand-scripted
copy of the Old Testament that is a holy object to Jews. The army could
neither confirm nor deny that a Torah scroll was inside the box.
-
- A man in a knitted skullcap who gave his name as Arieh
wept as the bulldozer backed away. "When Jews take a Torah scroll
from a synagogue, the state of Israel will fall apart," he shouted.
-
- Three soldiers were slightly injured and 14 settlers
were arrested in scuffles at the scene, Army Radio reported.
-
- Critics of Tuesday's operation, which was played out
before TV cameramen, photographers and reporters, said it was a meaningless
display. After similar army raids in the past, settlers simply rebuilt
demolished structures after soldiers left.
-
- "You really need a microscope to see the differences
before and after," said Dror Etkes of Peace Now, an Israeli group
that monitors settlement expansion. "A few days later, everything
is back in place."
-
- Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz has ordered several
outposts demolished. Under the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan,
Israel is required to remove dozens of outposts, but so far has taken down
only a few. The Palestinians also have failed to meet their first obligations,
including a clampdown on militants.
-
- Shortly before sundown Tuesday, most of the Jewish activists
and the soldiers were gone, leaving the synagogue a skeleton with only
a few uprights supporting its green, gabled roof. A police officer said
demolition would be completed Wednesday.
-
- In Gaza's Rafah refugee camp, the pace was markedly different.
-
- As the Israeli bulldozers went to work, frantic residents
threw mattresses and blankets from second-floor windows as ceilings and
walls come crashing down around them. One woman, standing just feet from
a bulldozer, waved a white flag in a failed attempt to slow the demolition
and salvage belongings. A crying girl helped her mother carry a mattress.
-
- The governor of Rafah, Majed Agha, said about 400 people
were made homeless Tuesday. Palestinian human rights workers said 17 houses
were destroyed and another eight badly damaged. Agha initially put the
number of demolished buildings at 30.
-
- Israel has demolished hundreds of houses in Rafah, near
the Egyptian border, in more than three years of fighting, saying the buildings
gave cover to gunmen and weapons smugglers.
-
- Also razed Tuesday was a neighborhood mosque, Al Tawhid,
which had been partially demolished Saturday, residents said. The mosque
is about 70 yards from an Israeli patrol road. "This is a crime against
God's law and human law as well," said preacher Ibrahim Abu Jazar.
-
- The military said it was still checking the report of
the mosque demolition. In the past three years, troops have generally stayed
clear of holy sites.
-
- Copyright © 2004 The Associated Press. All rights
reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority
of The Associated Press.
-
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