ARABS-ISRAEL - July 13 - Israel Shuts Palestinian Territories After Attack.

Israel seals off the Palestinian territories, reoccupied the West Bank town of Tulkarm and declares the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip a closed military zone in an energetic response to a Palestinian suicide bombing on July 12 that killed four Israeli women. PM Ariel Sharon is to start withdrawing the Gaza settlers in just over a month, and the two potential threats to his plan are a surge in Palestinian attacks and massive protests by the Jewish settlers and their supporters. Sharon moved July 13 to head off both possibilities. Before dawn, Israeli troops entered Tulkarm and the nearby village of Atil, where the suicide bomber, Ahmed Abu Khalil, 18, had lived. The troops arrested several Palestinians, including the bomber's father. In shooting exchanges, one Palestinian policeman was killed, and one was seriously wounded. Tulkarm is one of the West Bank towns handed over to Palestinian security control after Sharon and the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, declared a truce at their first summit meeting on Feb 8. Israeli officials have complained bitterly that Abbas and his police have not cracked down on the armed groups plotting against Israeli targets. The bombing "was a last straw", a senior Israeli military official said. Sharon, speaking to a group of new immigrants from North America, said Israel would act forcefully against Islamic Jihad, the group responsible for the bombing. "Yesterday I ordered the security forces to intensify our operations and to strike as much as possible at the leadership of the terrorist organization, Islamic Jihad", Sharon said. "We will not stop until they stop the terrorist murders". At a cemetery outside Tel Aviv, Rachel Ben Abu and Nofar Horvitz, two 16-year-old Israeli girls and best friends who were killed in the bombing, were buried side-by-side in a joint funeral.b According to Israeli officials, Islamic Jihad has killed 10 Israelis and launched six actual or thwarted attacks since the truce was announced five months ago. Islamic Jihad took responsibility for the one other suicide bombing since the truce, at the Stage nightclub in Tel Aviv on Feb 25, which killed five Israelis. In that attack, the bomber came from a village adjacent to Atil, home of Khalil. At the family's small stucco home, Khalil's mother, Lutfiah Abu Khalil, praised her son as a "hero", and said she hoped her second oldest son, Mahmoud, 14, would also become a "martyr". On July 12 morning, Palestinian youths who had just finished high school set out early to receive the results on their final exams. Khalil shaved off his wispy beard and mustache, hugged his mother, asked her forgiveness, and told her he was going to check out his scores when he left at 7 a.m., Lutfiah Khalil said. Twelve hours later, the son detonated his bomb belt in a crosswalk in front of a shopping mall in the seaside town of Netanya, about 16 kms, to the west. Israeli soldiers had occupied several Palestinian homes in Atil for the past month as they searched for wanted men, said the mayor of the village, Abdullah Quraini. And 10 days ago, soldiers entered the Khalil family home during the night, searching the premises and removing the hard drive from the family computer, but made no arrests, the family said. The troops left the village several days ago. Lutfiah Khalil said she had no knowledge of her son's plans, but added, "For the past several years, he talked all the time about becoming a martyr". Meanwhile, Sharon and the army also used the dramatic events to move on another front - shutting down any travel by nonresidents to the Gaza settlements that Israel intends to evacuate beginning in mid-August. The government and army wanted to head off a planned march of settlers and others opposed to the pullout planned for July 18. The march could have brought an influx of thousands of protesters, some of whom would have remained in the Gaza settlements, swelling the population - currently about 9,000 Israelis in 1,600 families. The settlers were angry, with a spokesman for the Gaza settlers, Eran Sternberg, accusing Sharon of hitting "rock bottom from a moral standpoint". The closure also applies to four small settlements in the northern West Bank that are also to be evacuated, but the army said it had no means now to enforce the ban. Essential services will continue to be provided, and there is a provision for relatives and guests of the settlers, as well as journalists. After mid-August, it will be illegal for any Israeli citizen to remain in the Gaza settlements. Israeli officials hammered hard on July 13 at several themes: the need, as they put it, for Abbas to get serious about Islamic Jihad and Hamas; the need to ramp up active counterterrorism activities by the Israeli Army in the absence of action by the PA; and the pressures such attacks create in Israel for an even tougher stance against the Palestinians. Israeli military and political officials also emphasised that Abbas met with leaders of Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Damascus last week. They rebuffed the offer by Abbas to join his government, but reaffirmed a pledge to maintain the calm. Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli FM, said the bombing had created difficulties for Israel. After the truce, he said, Israel "ceased proactive counterterrorist activities" in Gaza and the West Bank, he said. "The fear is that groups like Islamic Jihad and Hamas are using this period of quiet now to regroup and rearm", he added. Abbas called the bombing "idiotic" and condemned it as counter to Palestinian interests. But he did not blame Islamic Jihad by name and there was no indication that the PA was acting against the group. Also July 13, two Western aid workers, a Briton and an Austrian, were released after being kidnapped earlier in the day in central Gaza, Palestinian security officials said. The kidnappings were apparently carried out by a Palestinian family who hoped to use the aid workers as bargaining chips to gain the release of relatives who are in Palestinian jails, according to the security officials.