Despite the above decision by Defense Minister Mofaz to allow PA agents to carry guns, sources in the IDF told INN correspondent Haggai Huberman that no new instructions have yet been received. "Nothing has changed in the policy of the past two years," Huberman reports, "according to which any armed person seen in the streets of a PA-controlled area is suspected of being a terrorist and is shot."
Ever since Operation Defensive Shield - a month-long major offensive in Shechem and elsewhere in the spring of 2002 to uproot the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure - the IDF has been operating freely throughout the cities of Judea and Samaria. Israeli forces relate to any armed person they see as a terrorist, and terrorism has in fact decreased significantly during this period.
Huberman said that the officials he spoke to last night did not have answers for the following questions: Will the army be able to continue its nightly terrorist-netting operations with armed PA policemen milling about? Will the arms be allowed to be carried at night as well, and must the weapons be concealed? How will the army know if a given armed Arab is a policeman or a terrorist?
Ever since Operation Defensive Shield - a month-long major offensive in Shechem and elsewhere in the spring of 2002 to uproot the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure - the IDF has been operating freely throughout the cities of Judea and Samaria. Israeli forces relate to any armed person they see as a terrorist, and terrorism has in fact decreased significantly during this period.
Huberman said that the officials he spoke to last night did not have answers for the following questions: Will the army be able to continue its nightly terrorist-netting operations with armed PA policemen milling about? Will the arms be allowed to be carried at night as well, and must the weapons be concealed? How will the army know if a given armed Arab is a policeman or a terrorist?