Who wanted yesterday’s act of terrorism in Israel?

Hardly had the ink  of the UN, the USA, the EU and Russia’s new peace plan dried, before another act of terrorism made it absolutely worthless. Israel’s reaction in response was adequate to what has happened. The Israeli government introduced a curfew  in major cities of the Palestinian autonomy. The curfew was introduced in its toughest variant. Israelis have also blocked Yasser Arafat’s residence in Ramallah.

Israeli tanks entered the territory of Arafat’ compound. Then there was a skirmish with Palestinian security guards, two of them were slightly wounded.  Three powerful explosions took place in Ramallah on Friday morning, thick puffs of smoke were going up above the Palestinian leader’s complex. News agencies say that  Israelis blew up the buildings next to Arafat’s office. However, Israeli military men did not make any comments on that.

The major goal of the operation does not include nabbing Arafat or expelling him. They want to arrest Palestinian commanders that are allegedly involved in terrorism. Israelis say that they are hiding in the Mukata compund.

There are pieces of information that say that there are 20 commanders like that in chancellery premises. Others say that there are 26 of them. A Thursday session of the Israeli government reportedly decided to simply isolate Arafat. Nevertheless,  many participants of the session reportedly insisted on expelling Arafat from the Palestinian territory.

The events can have two ways of their further development. First of all, there can be a special operation conducted by the Israeli  army. This will provoke new blasts, Arafat will not be able to stop them, no matter what. There is also another scenario possible:  Arafat might deliver the suspects to Israel. That’s not really likely, though.

This suicidal act of terrorism was not just an incident. Security contacts between Palestine and Israel have started, mediators get more and more active. An act of terrorism put an end to all those efforts.

Dmitry Litvinovich
PRAVDA.Ru