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Sharon Convenes Inner Security Cabinet Meeting to Discuss Situation
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon convened an emergency session of the security inner-cabinet in Tel Aviv Tuesday morning to discuss the ongoing wave of violence.
Israel Radio reported that Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Deputy Defense Minister Dalia Rabin-Pelosoff, as well as heads of the military establishment, were present at the hastily convened meeting.
Finance Minister Silvan Shalom was also invited to the meeting, although he is not a member of the inner-cabinet.
Sharon said on Monday that in the wake of the continuing " terror" attacks, Israel cannot continue with the present situation.
Ben-Eliezer also said that Israel would reconsider its policy of restraint following the continued Palestinian attacks against Israel and that the Israeli army must act more actively to head off terror attacks, strike out at terrorists planning outrages, and arrest more terror operatives.
There was an upsurge of violence on Monday following the assassination of three Palestinian Islamic Jihad activists near the West Bank city of Jenin late Sunday night.
Two Israelis were shot dead, one inside Israeli territory but close to the 1967 Green Line near the West Bank city of Tul Karm and the other near the West Bank area of Hebron. Two car bombs rocked the Israeli central town of Yehud on the eastern outskirts of Tel Aviv.
An Israeli settler was also seriously wounded in a shooting attack near the West Bank city of Nablus.
In the wake of increased violence, Israeli and Palestinian security officials met in Tel Aviv Monday night under the auspices of U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials. The meeting, however, ended with no results, with each side blaming the other for violating the ceasefire.
An Israel Radio report Tuesday quoted a senior security source as saying that Sharon had instructed the Israeli army to act as in a guerrilla war, and that the Israeli army had begun carrying out that policy.
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