In a week that saw a number of Israeli victims of terror, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said he would rely on the future Palestinian police force to serve as Israel’s “partner” in combating terrorism.
“They will have something to lose if they don’t exert control,” he reportedly said Sunday.
“They will have an enormous stake in securing the peace. If they fail and the bloodletting continues, they know they will not arrive at their destination and will not get what they wish to achieve beyond Gaza and Jericho,” Rabin said, referring to the two sites where the accord will be implemented first. The prime minister’s comments came amid another wave of violence in the administered territories and within Israel.
On Sunday, an Israeli reportedly belonging to Shin Bet, the country’s secret police, was shot and killed during a terrorist attack in the West Bank tow of Ramallah. Two other Israelis were wounded in the ambush.
The three were shot during a Shin Bet operation in Ramallah, military sources said. The incident prompted the Israeli military to close the area and launch a massive search for the assailants.
Noam Cohen, who was killed in Sunday’s attack, was reportedly the first member of Shin Bet to be killed in a terrorist incident since January 1993.
A member of the Izz a-din al-Kassam, the military wing of the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas movement, later claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred at the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The incident occurred several days after a taxi-driver and a farmer were murdered by terrorists.
The body of 23-year-old Ilan Sudri was found Friday near the Negev city of Netivot, not far from where his blood-stained taxi had been found the day before. He had been shot several times in the head.
The fundamentalist Islamic Jihad movement claimed responsibility for the killing.
Sudri was buried at a local cemetery next to Elias Cohen, a Beersheba taxi driver who was shot to death about two weeks ago.
Sudri had been a member of the border police in the Gaza Strip, but he left the force and reportedly bought a taxi only a week ago.
Naftali Sahar, 75, was murdered last week in his orange grove near Rehovot. He was reportedly killed by an Arab worker, who hit him on the head with an iron bar.
The murders of Sudri and Sahar prompted renewed calls to replace Palestinian agricultural workers with foreigner laborers.
At Sunday’s weekly Cabinet meeting, Agriculture Minister Yakov Tsur proposed that Israel allow into the country 1,000 non-Palestinian foreign workers, but debate on the question was postponed.
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