On Monday Raed Mahmoud Raef Karmi, a Tanzim operative, born
in 1974, died in an explosion near his home in Tulkarm.
Last week Israel demolished Palestinian houses along the
border between Gaza and Egypt.
Asked if death of Karmi, taken with the demolition of homes
in Rafah, will not hurt Israel's position in the world, a
senior official said: "With all due respect, public relations
is not always the main goal." When public relations
considerations are weighed against security considerations,
the security considerations will prevail, he said. A
forthright and direct saying of this nature is definitely
good news.
The dramatic drop in the number of targeted killings over the
last month should not be interpreted as if Israel had
abandoned this policy when faced with "ticking bombs," the
senior diplomatic official said.
The official defined a "ticking bomb" as someone on his way
to carrying out a terror attack or those actively involved in
planning the attacks, preparing the suicide bombers, and
sending them on their way. Karmi, the official said, fell in
the latter category.
Although in the last month there has been more of an effort
to arrest wanted terrorists rather than kill them, the
official said for logistical reasons this is not always
possible.
Though Karmi has been on Israel's most wanted list for a long
time, and Israel tried to kill him two months ago in a
missile attack, Israel did not take responsibility for his
death on Monday. Officials suggested that he may have died in
a "work accident" though they issued a full explanation of
why he deserved to die, possibly prepared in advance of the
attempt to kill him two months ago.
The Palestinians had been reporting to European governments
for some time that Raed Karmi had been imprisoned by the
Palestinian Authority. Thus, again the PA claims to have
imprisoned a terrorist even though this was not the case.
Karmi has ranked high on the list of terrorists Israel asked
the PA to arrest.
Since the beginning of the current wave of Palestinian
violence in October 2000, the Prime Minister's office said,
Karmi had been the leading member of a murderous Tanzim cell
that was responsible for numerous shooting attacks in the
Tulkarm area, in which both Israeli civilians and soldiers
were killed and wounded.
Karmi had made it clear that he was determined to continue
terrorist attacks against Israel and that he wanted to expand
them. In a CNN interview on August 23, 2001, Karmi stated:
"We train the teenagers to carry out terrorist attacks inside
Israeli territory. We train 17- and 18-year-olds to attack
settlers, kidnap soldiers inside Israel." In other
interviews, he also described his involvement in the
kidnapping and murder of two Israeli restaurateurs in
Tulkarm saying that he fired the first shot at them.
Raed Karmi worked directly under Marwan Barghouti, head of the
Tanzim in Judea and Samaria and was under his direct
supervision.
Raed Karmi was involved in the perpetration of many terrorist
attacks, including numerous shooting attacks on IDF and
Border Police bases in the area of Tulkarm; Oct. 20, 2000:
participated in shooting attack on bus of Golani soldiers
that mistakenly entered the city; Dec. 7, 2000: Shooting at
an Israeli vehicle, seriously injuring soldiers and a female
civilian; Jan 23, 2001: Kidnapping and murder of two Tel Aviv
restaurant owners, Motti Dayan and Zeitouny, in Tulkarm; May
31, 2001: Participated in a shooting attack on an Israeli
vehicle in which Zvi Shelef of Mevo Dotan was killed; June
18, 2001: Shooting attack near in Einav, in which an Israeli
civilian, Dan Yehuda of Homesh, was killed and Alex Briskin
was injured; July 4, 2001: The murder of Eliahu Na'aman; Aug.
26, 2001: The murder of Dov Rosman; Sept. 6, 2001: Shooting
murder of off-duty IDF officer, Lt. Erez Merhavi; Oct. 5,
2001: Shooting attack in which Hananya Ben-Avraham of Elad,
was killed; Oct. 28, 2001: murder of IDF officer Yaniv Levy;
Oct. 29, 2001: Attempt to detonate a bomb in the home of a
naval officer in Raanana; Nov. 19, 2001: Shooting attack on a
taxi near the Shavei Shomron junction, in which three Israeli
citizens, including the rabbi of Shavei Shomron, were
injured; Nov. 28, 2001: attempt by two suicide bombers to
infiltrate into Israeli territory, foiled by reinforced IDF
forces along the Green Line near Tulkarm; Dec. 15, 2001: An
abortive suicide attack in which the explosive charge blew up
prematurely near Shaar Ephraim; only the terrorist was
killed.
