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24 Palestinians Die as Israel Strikes West Bank and Gaza
Thursday, February 21, 2002
By Peter Hermann
Sun Foreign Staff

17-month conflict sees one of its bloodiest days as army forces retaliate

QALANDIYA, West Bank
Reeling from a series of deadly ambushes against its soldiers, the Israeli army unleashed ferocious attacks yesterday and early today against the Palestinians, killing 24 in one of the bloodiest periods of the 17-month conflict.

For the second time since December, an Apache helicopter fired a missile into Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah, hitting an intelligence post yards from where Arafat sat at his desk. It shattered an office window, but Arafat was not hurt.

Twelve of the dead were Palestinian policemen. Army units swept through the West Bank and Gaza Strip, arresting suspected militants and closing roads that link Palestinian cities, isolating scores of villages and disrupting the daily routine of hundreds of thousands of people.

At the Qalandiya checkpoint, the main link between the northern West Bank and Jerusalem, edgy Israeli soldiers blocked the road with concrete barriers and fired bursts of automatic weapons fire over the head of anyone who ventured near.

Meeting in Jerusalem last night with more than 100 members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he would intensify military operations against the Palestinian Authority and militant groups.
(More: The Baltimore Sun News Source)
2002 © The Baltimore Sun.

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