Israel Hunts Syria Infiltrators After Day of Bloodshed 

By Majeda El Batsh 
Agence France Presse via www.CommonDreams.org
May 16, 2011

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/16-4

Hundreds of police fanned out across the Golan Heights on
Monday in search of refugees who crossed over from Syria in
some of the bloodiest violence in years along Israel's
borders.

In Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories, people
gathered to mourn the 14 people killed when Israeli troops
opened fire on thousands of protesters who sought to breach
its northern borders.

Hundreds were injured in the occupied Golan Heights, as well
as in clashes with Israeli troops in the West Bank and
northern Gaza Strip as Palestinians marked the anniversary of
Israel's founding in 1948, in an event known in Arabic as the
"nakba" or "catastrophe."

Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said house-to-house
searches were ongoing on Monday afternoon and roadblocks had
been set up around the Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams,
where protesters who crossed over from Syria gathered.

On Monday morning, police detained a 34-year-old Syrian, who
was trying to leave the town in a taxi driven by a
Palestinian from east Jerusalem, he said.

Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai told army radio the military
remained "in a state of high alert in the north, the south
and the centre."

Defence chiefs also extended a 24-hour lockdown on the
occupied Palestinian territories which had been due to end at
midnight on Sunday.

The White House accused Syria on Monday of stoking protests
in the Golan Heights as a "distraction" from its repression
of anti-government protests, which entered a third month
Sunday.

The United States is "strongly opposed to the Syrian
government's involvement in inciting yesterday's protests in
the Golan Heights," White House spokesman Jay Carney told
reporters.

"Such behaviour is unacceptable and does not serve as a
distraction from the Syrian government's ongoing repression
of demonstrators in its own country," Carney said.

Sunday's violence was some of the worst in the Israeli-
occupied Golan Heights since a 1974 truce accord, and the
clashes along the Lebanese border marked the bloodiest
confrontation since the 2006 war between the two neighbours.

Most of the victims were in Lebanon, where 10 people were
killed and 110 injured when Israeli troops opened fire on
people trying to scale the border fence.

Another four people were killed when they entered the Golan
Heights, along with hundreds of other protesters, Syrian
medics said.

The Israeli army said "dozens" had been injured in the two
incidents, along with 13 soldiers.

In Gaza, 125 people were injured, five of them seriously,
when troops opened fire as more than 1,000 Palestinians
marched on the northern Erez crossing.

Elsewhere, 29 others were injured in clashes in the West Bank
and annexed east Jerusalem.

Palestinian refugee camps across Lebanon declared a day of
mourning, with shops observing a general strike ahead of the
funerals for the 10 victims, which were taking place in four
refugee camps on Monday.

In the Palestinian territories, President Mahmud Abbas
announced a two-hour strike in all public institutions except
schools and ordered all Palestinian flags be flown at half-
mast.

Hassan Nasrallah, head of the Lebanese Shiite militia group
Hezbollah praised the protesters, saying they had "given the
nakba new meaning," and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal, speaking
from Damascus, condemned Israel's "new Zionist crime against
our people who were demonstrating peacefully."

Lebanon has filed a complaint with the United Nations, urging
it to make Israel "halt its aggression and provocation" while
Syria warned that the Jewish state would bear full
responsibility for its "criminal" actions.

Israel responded by saying it would file its own complaint
against both Syria and Lebanon, accusing them of violating
Israeli borders.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed deep concern over
the violence and urged all sides to show the "utmost
responsibility" to avoid new hostilities, a spokesman said.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Jewish
state was "determined" to defend its borders against
protesters bent on denying Israel's right to exist.

More than 760,000 Palestinians -- estimated today to number
4.8 million with their descendants -- were pushed into exile
or driven out of their homes in the conflict that accompanied
the Jewish state's foundation.

© 2011 AFP Join the discussion:

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