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Wednesday
High: 93; Low: 74; Partly cloudy
Thursday
High: 93; Low: 71; Mostly Cloudy
Friday
High: 93; Low: 70; Isolated T-Storms
1937
— Orson Welles produces, directs, and stars in Les Miserables,
the first radio play to be produced by the fledging Mercury Theater
group.
1939 — In response to Hitler’s invasion of Poland, Britain
and France, both allies of the overrun nation declare war on Germany
1957 — Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus enlists the National
Guard to prevent nine Black students from entering Central High
School in Little Rock.
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Israel
allows expelling those who aid terror suspects allowed
Israeli military argues expulsion is an effective deterrent against
attacks while relatives fear for those being expelled.
By STEVE WEIZMAN
Associated Press
JERUSALEM
— Israel’s Supreme Court gave the army a new tool in its
two-year struggle against Palestinian violence Tuesday, allowing
it to expel Palestinians from the West Bank to Gaza for aiding terror
suspects.
In the first case of its kind, the court upheld the expulsion of
two relatives of a terror suspect, but overturned an order against
a third person, ruling that expulsion must be limited only to relatives
directly involved in terror attacks.
Palestinians called for foreign intervention to stop the Israeli
practice, while human rights groups said it violates international
law, particularly the Geneva Conventions.
Israel said the two, a brother and sister of a suspected terrorist,
would be taken to Palestinian Authority territory on the edge of
the Gaza Strip today. Palestinian officials said they would stay
in a hotel and then move to a housing project in Gaza City.
Also Tuesday, Israeli troops killed two Palestinians walking near
a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. A military official said soldiers
saw one of the men carrying a weapon and fired a tank shell at him.
Palestinians said both men were unarmed.
In the Jenin refugee camp, seven Palestinians, including two children,
were hurt when a bomb exploded, residents said. They said it was
apparently left over from a battle with Israeli forces in April,
when Palestinians planted hundreds of bombs in the camp.
At the Supreme Court hearing, the Israeli military argued that expulsions
are an effective deterrent against suicide bombings and other attacks.
Human rights lawyers said the measure violates the Geneva Conventions,
which forbid “individual or mass forcible transfers” or
deportations of “protected persons from occupied territory
to the territory of the occupying power or to that of any other
country.”
The court accepted the state’s argument that the West Bank
and Gaza Strip constitute one territory, and so sending people from
the West Bank to Gaza did not amount to deportation. Israel has
never acknowledged that the Geneva Conventions apply to the West
Bank and Gaza Strip.
Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat called the expulsions war
crimes and said the Palestinians may ask the U.N. Security Council
to discuss the matter.
The justices approved the expulsion of Intisar and Kifah Ajouri,
sister and brother of Ali Ajouri, a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’
Brigade militia. Ajouri allegedly sent two suicide bombers to Tel
Aviv on July 17, and two Israelis and three foreign workers were
killed in the attack.
Ali Ajouri was killed in an Israeli army strike on Aug. 6.
The court said Intisar Ajouri sewed the explosives belts for the
bombers, and Kifah kept watch while his brother moved explosives
between hiding places.
The judges overturned the expulsion order against Abdel Nasser Asidi,
brother of a Hamas activist accused of involvement in two West Bank
attacks that killed 19 Israelis.
The conflicting rulings indicated that every time the military tries
to use expulsion, it may face court hearings.
Lawyer Leah Tzemel, who represented two of the petitioners, said,
“It puts Israel into difficulties with international law and
leads soldiers into the possibility of being sentenced as war criminals.”
She said the Hague-based International Criminal Court had jurisdiction
only in cases dating from July 1, when it came into being.
The ruling, written by Chief Justice Aharon Barak, said that the
military can expel a relative of a militant only if that person
poses a real security threat.
The ruling said the court sought to balance security concerns and
human rights.
“In this balance, human rights cannot receive complete protection
as if there were no terror, and state security cannot receive complete
protection, as if there were no human rights,” Barak wrote.
Intisar and Kifah Ajouri, the two Palestinians slated for expulsion,
are residents of the Askar refugee camp, near the West Bank city
of Nablus.
Their mother, Rashida, 64, said the two had not seen Ali for six
months before being arrested. Two days after the Tel Aviv bombing,
army bulldozers demolished the family’s three-story house with
six apartments for Mrs. Ajouri, her husband and their unmarried
daughter, Intisar, and her five sons and their families.
“That was not enough for them. They want to kill everyone in
the family by deportation,” Mrs. Ajouri said.
On May 10, 26 Palestinian militants were expelled from Bethlehem
to Gaza at the end of a 39-day Israeli siege at the Church of the
Nativity. That case was not tested in court because it was the result
of an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
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