October 2003
4 October 2003, JERUSALEM - At least 19 people were killed and around 30 wounded on Saturday
in a suicide bombing at a popular sea-front restaurant in the northern
Israeli city of Haifa.
5 October 2003, Israel took its battle against Palestinians to Syria on Sunday, bombing
near the capital Damascus for the first time in decades, after a
bomber killed 19 people in an Israeli restaurant.
There was no immediate Syrian reaction, but a diplomat in Damascus said that the Arab country planned to ask the U.N. Security Council to meet to
discuss the raid. The Israel Defense Forces claimed that they hit a training base used by Palestinian groups.
10 October 2003, GAZA CITY - An eight-year-old Palestinian boy was killed by Israeli troops
in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday,
raising to six the number of Palestinians killed in a massive army
incursion.
Ibrahim al-Qirinawi was shot and mortally wounded in the head as dozens of
Israeli armoured vehicles, backed by helicopters, thrust deep into the town
of Rafah. Five other Palestinians were killed in the raid, including a 12-year-old
child and a teenager.
11 Octobar 2003, The Israeli occupation aggression on Rafah refugee camp has started on
midnight Thursday but has continued all Friday and Saturday day and night
without signs of stopping. Israeli forces have surrounded the refugee camp
by soldiers and tanks, assisted by Apache helicopters. They have destroyed
Palestinian homes all the way near the border with Egypt. They have been
firing at any Palestinians walking in the streets. They have been destroying
water tanks over homes, water pipes in the streets, uprooting trees, and
keeping the population literally indoors for three days.
At least two children were among 7 Palestinians killed and eight children
were among more than 51 wounded when around midnight Thursday Israeli
Occupation Forces launched a massive military invasion of the Yubna
refugee camp, home to thousands of Palestinians who were forced out of their
homes in Israel in 1948, adjacent to the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah.
13 October 2003, RAMALLAH, West Bank - Yasser Arafat on Monday appointed a senior member of
the ruling Fatah party as acting security chief, in a new blow to
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei.
Arafat named Hakam Balawi, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, as
interior minister in the interim Cabinet whose term will expire in another
three weeks. In that position, Balawi would command the Palestinian security forces. The
security chief would play an important role in implementing the US-backed
“road map” peace plan which calls on Palestinians to disarm militant groups.
19 October 2003, Israeli forces shot dead four Palestinians yesterday
in the Palestinian territories, including a senior member of the Hamas
resistance group, a woman bystander and a teenager. The deaths
stoked tension already fuelled by the killing of three American security
guards in a bomb attack on a US diplomatic convoy in Gaza on Wednesday and
highlighted the persistent violence bogging down US-led peace efforts.
In the southern Gaza Strip, witnesses said troops shot dead Tareq Abu
Al-Hussain, 39, a local leader of Hamas’ military wing, in a clash which
began at Brazil refugee camp when militants attacked soldiers who entered
the camp three days ago. Another Hamas activist was killed in the Gaza shootings in the southern Rafah district, and a woman, 30, was killed by shrapnel from a tank shell
after emerging from her house.
21 October 2003, Twelve Palestinians were killed and more than 100, the majority of them
women, children and other bystanders were injured when Israeli military jets
and gunships carried out five consecutive air raids on Gaza City and a
densely-populated refugee camp Monday.
The onslaught began early in the morning when an Israeli F-16 fighter jet
launched a missile on a house in Gaza City 200 meters away from the home of
Abdullah Al-Shami, a senior Islamic Jihad leader, in a renewed
assassination attempt. Al-Shami survived while 14
Palestinians, including two children, were injured.
From then on four other air strikes were carried out, the deadliest of which
was at around 9:15 pm — a missile strike by an Apache gunship on a civilian
car at the entrance to al-Nusseirat refugee camp, south of Gaza city.
That attack, which killed two of three men who were in the car, was followed
by another missile that hit a crowd of people who had gathered to rescue the
wounded. This left at least nine dead as well as over 50 injured, fifteen
medical sources described as in critical condition.
22 october 2003, In a decision seen as a sharp blow to Israel, the UN General Assembly
overwhelmingly approved a resolution demanding the Jewish State to “stop and
reverse” the construction of the unilateral separation wall it is building
on Palestinian land.
The resolution, which demands that Israel halt construction of the wall and
remove existing stretches, was passed when 144 of 191 nations voted in
favor, four against, including the US and Israel, and twelve abstentions. The resolution, which is not legally binding, won the support of the
European Union, which is part of the “Quartet” of mediators for reaching a
Middle East peace and is a sponsor of the “roadmap” peace plan.
The wall, which has been condemned by the international community and human
rights groups, has already encroached upon thousands of acres of the West
Bank’s most fertile land. Upon completion, Palestinians say the wall will
engulf 58% of the West Bank.
24 October 2003, Palestinian Gunmen killed three Israeli soldiers, two of them women, at a
Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip on Friday in a joint shooting and
grenade attack by the two main Palestinian Islamic resistance groups.
In another part of the Gaza Strip, Palestinian witnesses said Israeli troops
shot dead an 11-year-old Palestinian boy near a Jewish settlement on Friday
afternoon.
30 October 2003, Israeli Occupation Forces on Wednesday shot dead two boys aged 12 and
16 in the West Bank and an armed Palestinian man in the Gaza Strip as
another teenager died of wounds sustained earlier, only a day after they
assassinated a Palestinian activist in Tulkarem.
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