Israel on alert after Gaza strike
Court orders halt to barrier work
AFP, Gaza City
Israel was on high alert yesterday after the killing of three Palestinians in an air strike near Gaza City, as judges ordered a halt to work on a section of the controversial West Bank barrier near Jerusalem. Another wanted Palestinian militant was killed Sunday, prompting Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei to accuse the Israelis of trying to wreck attempts to broker a ceasefire. Police reinforcements were deployed in large numbers along the Green Line which separates Israel from the West Bank in a bid to prevent any infiltrations by would-be Palestinian suicide attackers after the Israeli helicopter strike late Saturday in which an Islamic Jihad military chief was killed, security sources said. The main Erez border crossing between the Gaza Strip and the Jewish state was closed, preventing thousands of Palestinians from traveling to their work in Israel or in a neighbouring industrial zone. Mahmud Jouda, 30, a top leader of Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian radical group, was killed alongside fellow militant Amin al-Dahduh, 42, in the Gaza strike on Saturday night. His 20-year-old cousin Ayman, not affiliated to the group, was also killed, medical and security sources said. An Israeli military spokesman said the strike targeted "a vehicle carrying senior Islamic Jihad terrorists who were responsible for planning a number of terror attacks against Israeli civilian and military targets". Israeli security services fear any reprisals will be launched from the West Bank, where authorities are building a massive barrier which they say is designed to foil suicide attacks. At funerals for the three victims Sunday, Islamic Jihad said the barrier would not protect Israel. More than 4,000 Palestinians turned out to pay their last respects to Jouda, as his body was taken in a cortege from Gaza City to the nearby Jabalya refugee camp. The two cousins were also buried in Gaza. "The wall will not prevent us from carrying out more attacks," one Jihad follower told the crowds via loudspeaker. Israel's supreme court Sunday ordered the suspension of construction of a section of the barrier northwest of Jerusalem where two Palestinian protesters were killed last week, judicial sources said. The suspension order, which will remain in force until next week, allows the court to examine appeals presented by residents of eight Palestinian villages in the West Bank against construction of the barrier on their land.
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