The IDF made its most important arrest yesterday since the start of Operation Defensive Shield, capturing Al-Aksa Brigade commander Nasser Arwis. An elite commando unit captured Arwis by complete surprise in the village of Tubas, northeast of Shechem, as he slept. He was directly responsible for murdering at least 11 Israelis over the past 19 months, as well as for recruiting members for the Fatah Tanzim and helping them plot attacks. The Israeli forces woke Arwis by placing a gun to his head; he, his assistant and two other wanted Fatah fugitives surrendered without a fight...
US Secretary of State Powell visited Northern Command offices on Friday, and was briefed about the severity of the escalating Hizbullah attacks on Israel\'s northern border. Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Powell that the northern border is \"about to explode,\" adding that the shelling from southern Lebanon has been a daily occurrence. Powell called the briefing a \"sobering\" one: \"[The situation is] escalating,\" he said, \"and as you know, a round landed during the course of the briefing, and I condemn that. I call upon nations who have influence over Hizbullah, especially Syria, to do everything in its power to restrain Hizbullah and to stop this kind of activity before it widens the conflict in the region with consequences that are devastating to consider for the whole region...\"
The security forces dismantled several grenades that were placed at the Erez Checkpoint in northern Gaza this morning. Two terrorists opened fire there last week, killing an Israeli soldier and another Arab worker. In this morning\'s attempted attack, an Arab terrorist - apparently a PLO policeman - placed the grenades in the bus-park and ran away...
Some 15 Israelis were arrested this morning, part of a group of 20 who entered and prayed in Joseph\'s Tomb last night. This was the third such entry since the IDF took over Shechem in Operation Defensive Shield. The Jews were arrested on charges of violating an order issued by the Central Commander Yitzchak Eitan forbidding entry - although Noam Livnat of Elon Moreh said that there was absolutely no danger involved, and that the order was solely a political one. \"It was a most uplifting experience,\" he said, \"to recite Psalms at this holy site that was so wantonly abandoned at the beginning of the Oslo War - especially Chapter 80, which we call Joseph\'s Psalm, that we used to recite aloud when we studied in Yeshivat Od Yosef Chai...\"
US Secretary of State Powell visited Northern Command offices on Friday, and was briefed about the severity of the escalating Hizbullah attacks on Israel\'s northern border. Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Powell that the northern border is \"about to explode,\" adding that the shelling from southern Lebanon has been a daily occurrence. Powell called the briefing a \"sobering\" one: \"[The situation is] escalating,\" he said, \"and as you know, a round landed during the course of the briefing, and I condemn that. I call upon nations who have influence over Hizbullah, especially Syria, to do everything in its power to restrain Hizbullah and to stop this kind of activity before it widens the conflict in the region with consequences that are devastating to consider for the whole region...\"
The security forces dismantled several grenades that were placed at the Erez Checkpoint in northern Gaza this morning. Two terrorists opened fire there last week, killing an Israeli soldier and another Arab worker. In this morning\'s attempted attack, an Arab terrorist - apparently a PLO policeman - placed the grenades in the bus-park and ran away...
Some 15 Israelis were arrested this morning, part of a group of 20 who entered and prayed in Joseph\'s Tomb last night. This was the third such entry since the IDF took over Shechem in Operation Defensive Shield. The Jews were arrested on charges of violating an order issued by the Central Commander Yitzchak Eitan forbidding entry - although Noam Livnat of Elon Moreh said that there was absolutely no danger involved, and that the order was solely a political one. \"It was a most uplifting experience,\" he said, \"to recite Psalms at this holy site that was so wantonly abandoned at the beginning of the Oslo War - especially Chapter 80, which we call Joseph\'s Psalm, that we used to recite aloud when we studied in Yeshivat Od Yosef Chai...\"