Palestinian Terrorists Kill Israeli Tourism Minister

October 17, 2001

A Palestinian terrorist group has assassinated Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine says the killing was to avenge the Israeli army's assassination of the group's leader, Abu Ali Mustafa, two months ago.

Zeevi, Israel's minister of tourism, was shot at a hotel in Jerusalem, and hospital efforts to revive him failed. He was the first Israeli government minister to be killed by Palestinians in decades of conflict.

An enraged Prime Minister Ariel Sharon convened a special session of parliament and said he holds Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat responsible for the killing. Sharon pledged a war to the bitter end against terrorists and those who help them.

The Palestinian Authority rejected blame and condemned the killing of Zeevi. But President Bush held Arafat at least partly to blame for the murder. A White House statement said, in part,

We have noted the statement of the Palestinian Authority condemning this assassination. This statement is appropriate, but words are not enough. It is time for the Palestinian Authority to take vigorous action against terrorists. The PFLP, which operates openly in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority, has claimed responsibility for this heinous act. The PA must immediately find and bring to justice those who committed this murder, as well as those who would do harm to efforts to restore an atmosphere of calm and security for Israelis and Palestinians.

Israel has reacted by freezing all contact with the Palestinian Authority, and Israeli radio says Arafat will be barred from using the Palestinian airport in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army also has restored the roadblocks it had removed this week around the West Bank Palestinian city of Ramallah.

Zeevi, a retired major-general, was a strong supporter of the Jewish settler movement and advocated the expulsion of all Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Zeevi announced Monday that he was resigning from the Sharon government to protest its decision to ease restrictions on Palestinians in the West Bank and remove Israeli troops from two Palestinian areas of Hebron that had been recently re-occupied. Another ultra-nationalist minister who said he was quitting, Infrastructure Minister Avigdor Lieberman, has rescinded his resignation because of the murder.

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