Kim Bullimore
Five Israelis were killed in the seaside town of Netanya on July 11, along with a Palestinian militant from Islamic Jihad, who detonated a suicide bomb. Eighty other Israelis were wounded in the blast.
According to a statement issued by Islamic Jihad, the bombing was in response to Israel's continued violation of the cease-fire it announced during February's Sharm El Sheik summit between Israeli PM Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. At the time of the summit, Sharon announced that Israel would "cease all its military activity against all Palestinians everywhere".
In the week before the Netanya bombing, Noor Faris Njem, a 14-year-old Palestinian boy, was killed by Israeli occupation forces in an unprovoked attack on the Balata refugee camp on the outskirts of Nablus. Njem was shot in the head when Israeli troops entered the refugee camp on July 6 and began firing on unarmed civilians.
Two days later, two teenage boys from Balata were also shot by Israeli troops, including 16-year-old Khalid Mohammed Msyme, who later died from his injuries.
According to a report issued by the Palestinian State Information Service on June 8, during the first four months of Israel's "cease-fire", Israeli occupation forces killed 38 Palestinians and wounded 411 others, while another 988 Palestinian civilians were arrested.
In direct violation of the cease-fire, Israeli occupation forces had also conducted almost 2000 incursions into Palestinian cities and villages, as well as at least 1100 raids on Palestinian houses. During the same period, 1306 checkpoints and roadblocks were also set up and at least 3380 hectares of Palestinian land was seized by the Israeli occupation forces.
Israel has also continued to build the illegal apartheid wall and expand its illegal settler-colonies in the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
As part of the Sharm el Sheik agreement, Israel had agreed to cease its policy of targeted assassinations of Palestinian militants. However, while it reduced the number carried out, targeted assassinations continued.
Two weeks before the Netanya bombing, Israeli security minister Gideon Ezra told Israeli Army Radio on June 22 that Israel had attempted to carry out a targeted assassination against a militant from Islamic Jihad. Ezra said the assassination attempt was "unsuccessful" but that "an opportunity had presented itself" and that "any means to neutralise the organisation [Islamic Jihad] was relevant and possible".
In response to the Netanya bombing, Israel sealed off the West Bank and Gaza and conducted incursions into the Palestinian city of Tulkarem, killing two Palestinian residents, including a Palestinian police officer.
The Netanya bombing was not only an attack on Israel for its violations of the cease-fire but also a challenge to Abbas and what is seen by many Palestinians as his inability to win any real concessions from Israel to end the occupation.
In June, Abbas was rebuffed by Sharon at a meeting to further discuss "all the basic issues" raised at Sharm el Sheik. According to Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, "in all the basic issues for which we were expecting positive responses, there were none".
The meeting between Abbas and Sharon took place just hours after Israeli forces carried out the failed assassination attempt on the Islamic Jihad militant and Israel had arrested 52 suspected members of the organisation.
In the wake of the failed June meeting, Islamic Jihad announced that if the Palestinian Authority did not take action to make sure Israel kept its commitment to the cease-fire, Islamic Jihad's militants would "consider ourselves to be outside [the cease-fire agreement] and will call upon all Palestinian factions to do the same".
On July 8, Islamic Jihad, along with Hamas, rejected an offer by Abbas to be part of a "national unity" government. Hamas had previously described Abbas's offer as a ploy to avoid keeping commitments he had made during his presidential election campaign.
From Green Left Weekly, July 20, 2005.
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