Israel yesterday sealed off the Palestinian territories and reoccupied the West Bank town of Tulkarem in a swift response to a suicide bombing at a shopping mall in the town of Netanya that killed four women.
The authorities simultaneously closed entrances to all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip to non-residents, with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon determined that extremists will not flood the territory ahead of next month's historic withdrawal.
The military shut down the territories and swept into Tulkarem to hunt down the perpetrators within hours of what was the first suicide attack in Israel in four-and-a-half months, claimed by radical Palestinian faction Islamic Jihad.
PHOTO: AFP
Troops arrested five members of the movement -- outlawed as a terrorist group by Washington and the EU -- around Tulkarem, which Israel had returned to Palestinian control last March as a confidence-building gesture.
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres urged the Palestinian Authority to follow Israel's example and get tough with the militant faction.
"We must demand of the Palestinians that, along with us, they must also begin to deal with Islamic Jihad in the only manner that Islamic Jihad understands. We must operate our way, and they must operate their way," he said.
Israel sharply rebuked Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for doing nothing to dismantle armed groups, even though the Palestinian leader denounced the suicide bombing as "a terrorist attack" and vowed to punish the perpetrators.
The territories would remain closed "until fresh orders are received," an army spokesman said, as a planned Israeli-Palestinian security meeting to coordinate the Gaza pullout was canceled amid the climate of distrust.
Palestinian sources said a police officer was killed and another wounded when the Israeli incursion into Tulkarem was met with exchanges of fire. An Israeli army spokesman said two Israeli soldiers were also slightly injured.
The army said the raid was launched to stop Jihad activities in the region, from where the bomber had come.
"The town of Tulkarem is a bastion of Islamic Jihad. This organization operates there freely," he added.
An Israeli official said plans to transfer control to the Palestinians in the West Bank towns of Ramallah, Bethlehem and Qalqiliya had now been frozen.
The US and visiting EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana urged the Palestinian Authority to bring the perpetrators to swift justice.
Abbas rushed to convene an emergency meeting in Gaza with all the militant factions, but it was not immediately clear when it would happen.
James Wolfensohn, the Middle East quartet's special envoy for the Gaza Strip pullout, expressed the hope that the attack would not affect the withdrawal.
"I would hope that it does not because that's just what the terrorists want," the former World Bank chief said.
Meanwhile, a British national and another foreigner were kidnapped yesterday in the Gaza Strip, British diplomats said.
"We believe that one British national and another foreign national has been kidnapped," Ross Allen, a spokesman for the British consulate in east Jerusalem said. "We are working with the Palestinian Authority. We have consulate staff in Gaza liaising with Palestinian officials."
The Briton's identity was not immediately revealed although it is thought he was working on a water-treatment project in the territory.
A report on the Arab satellite channel al-Arabiya said that the second kidnap victim was an Austrian, although there was no immediate confirmation from Austrian diplomats.
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