01/24/2002
EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-09663

TERRORISM AGAINST ISRAELIS

On January 17^th, a terrorist armed with a semiautomatic rifle burst into a hall in Hadera, Israel, where a Jewish family and their friends were celebrating a bat mitzvah, a coming-of-age party for their twelve-year-old daughter. The gunman killed six people and wounded more than two dozen before he was himself killed. A Palestinian group called the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack.

On January 22^nd, another gunman opened fire on a crowded Jerusalem street. More than twenty people were wounded before police chased down the terrorist and shot him dead. Two of the victims, both of them women, later died of their wounds. Again, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility.

Earlier this month, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the murder of an American citizen in the West Bank. He was seventy-one-year-old Avi Boaz, a longtime Israeli resident who was shot to death after visiting Palestinian friends in Beit Jala.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades is one of a number of groups that have conducted terrorist attacks in Israel and the areas administered by the Palestinian Authority. Other groups involved in terrorism are Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine--General Command.

The United States condemns this terrorism. As State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, "There is no justification for these kinds of attacks. They only kill innocent people."

As it has done before, the U.S. has called on Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestinian Authority, to take immediate and effective steps to end the attacks against Israel and bring those responsible to justice. "Once again," said State Department spokesman Boucher, "the point is that [Chairman Arafat] needs to dismantle the organizations that do these things. It’s not a matter of whether they decide they will or they won’t carry out attacks; it’s making sure that they can’t."