An American security delegation visited Thursday night the Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s compound in Ramallah and met with Arafat’s senior security advisor Jibreel Al-Rajoub. Palestinian sources reported that the Americans forwarded a strong warning to Rajoub over alleged activities that wanted Palestinian activists inside the compound are engaged in.
Immediately after the American left the compound, Rajoub accompanied with the head of security force 17 arrived at the room in which Fatah wanted activists are staying and moved Khaled Shawish, a leader in Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, into solitary confinement.
The American move came after Israeli General Security (SHABAK) arrested Palestinian women in Jerusalem and claimed that she admitted to act as a liaison between Shawish and the Lebanese Hezbollah party and that Shawish provided her with ‘necessary information’ to launch a bombing attack inside Israel.
Palestinian sources said that prior to the American visit to the presidential compound; army snipers took the roofs of high buildings surrounding the compound.
As well, An Israeli official source warned Syria and Iran that if such a bombing with Hezbollah involvement takes place, Israel would harshly respond against both of them.
Even when Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades denied the Israeli claims as false allegations, the Palestinian authority declared high alert and decided to set Shawish into solitary confinement in an attempt to diffuse the tense situation around the Presidential compound.
In a phone interview with Bethlehem TV correspondent Naser Laham, Shawish said that he knew nothing about the ‘whole story’, adding that the group of activists setting in the presidential compound ‘would do nothing that could hurt President Arafat’
Shawish, 30, from Aqabah village near the city of Jenin, became wanted after he took part in the killing of Rabbi Kahan’s son near Ramallah at the early months of the current crisis; Kahana, an extreme right wing Rabbi founded and headed the outlawed Kach movement until he was assassinated in the United States.
Shawish is partially paralyzed after he sustained serious wounds during an exchange of fire with the army. He sets inside the presidential compound since April 2002.
