Kim Bullimore
On August 4, Eden Natan Zada, an Israeli military deserter and member of the outlawed anti-Arab terrorist organisation Kach, open fired on a bus carrying Palestinians with Israeli citizenship (so-called Israeli Arabs), killing four and wounding a dozen more.
Zada had deserted the Israeli army because he opposed the Israel government's Gaza "disengagement" plan. He boarded the bus in the Israeli city of Haifa and opened fire on passengers when it reached the Palestinian town of Shfaram, also in Israel.
As Zada left the bus, he was surrounded by residents of the village who tried to disarm him by hurling objects at him and attacking him. He died in the melee.
As the August 15 deadline for the withdrawal of Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip approaches, Israel is contending with threats from ultra-Zionists within Kach and other settler organisations that oppose the disengagement.
Within both Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Israeli security forces have mobilised water cannon, patrol vehicles and mounted police to suppress Palestinian protests against Zada's terrorist act.
A committee made up of Palestinian members of the Israeli parliament and other Palestinian public officials in Israel announced that a general strike of the 1.2 million-strong Palestinian-Israeli population would take place on August 5. The committee also put out a call to action for a protest rally to take place in Nazareth.
Zada parents had previously warned the Israeli security forces that their son still retained his military issue automatic weapon and that he was living in the Kach stronghold, the illegal Israeli settler-colony of Tapauch. According to Associated Press, Zada's father said he wasn't afraid his son would do something, but that he "was afraid of the others" in Tapauch.
From Green Left Weekly, August 10, 2005.
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