Gaza Guerrilla Force Broken, Israelis Declare
Israeli security forces smashed a major guerrilla network of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement in the occupied Gaza Strip and arrested at least 50 suspected guerrillas, security sources said today.
The sources said the Palestinian version of Islamic Jihad is not connected to the shadowy Beirut organization of the same name that is holding several Western hostages kidnaped in Lebanon.
They said a shoot-out in Gaza last week led investigators to a big underground weapons arsenal in Gaza’s Shajaiye district. Four Islamic Jihad fighters and an Israeli undercover security agent were killed in the shoot-out.
The guerrillas are suspected of numerous attacks and acts of sabotage in the Gaza Strip in recent months, the sources said.
The Gaza gun battle sparked a week of violence that spread to the occupied West Bank over the weekend and continued in Arab East Jerusalem and Ramallah today.
Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin was quoted today as saying some of the violence might be connected to a visit by U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz’s visit, which will begin Friday, but Palestinian and international relief officials in the occupied territories disputed this interpretation.
Palestinian sources in Gaza said the Palestinian Islamic Jihad is linked to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organization, the largest faction in the Palestine Liberation Organization. Their activities are coordinated by a PLO office in Amman, the sources said.
The Gaza group was also responsible for the fatal stabbing of several Jews in the coastal strip in the last year, Israeli officials said.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
