The number of Israeli civilians killed in terror attacks in the last four years is nearly equal the number killed by terrorists in the preceding 53, Shin Bet head Avi Dichter told the cabinet Sunday. Dichter told the cabinet that from November 29, 1947, when the UN voted for partition and Jewish statehood, until the start of the current violence in September 2000, some 755 Israelis were killed in terror actions here or abroad. Some 674 Israeli civilians have been killed since September 2000. Dichter said that in 2004, 22 Israelis - or some 30 percent of the total casualties so far this year - have been killed in Hizbullah directed operations, carried out by the Tanzim-Fatah faction.
The increased involvement of Hizbullah was one of the trends Dichter pointed out during his briefing to the cabinet, a briefing that some ministers complained was long on statistics, but short on depth. Dichter replied that he is unable to delve more into detail because the information he tells the cabinet is leaked to the press. He said his cabinet briefings are not substantially different from the information he gives to the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. He said that the only governmental body that receives more detailed information is the Knesset's Foreign Affairs Defense subcommittee on the secret services.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon echoed Dichter's claim, bemoaning that sensitive information is leaked from cabinet meetings. In addition to the increase of Hizbullah involvement in Palestinian terror attacks, Dichter said that there has been a substantial increase in the Palestinian use of women and children under 18 to carry out attacks. If in 2001 women and children took part in some 3% of the attacks, in 2004 they account for some 8 percent of the attacks. Dichter said this statistic reflects both the difficulty the Palestinians are having in successfully carrying out attacks involving men, and that the Palestinians are increasingly turning to "weaker and more impressionable" parts of the population for recruits. He also said that 17% of all Israelis killed since the beginning of the violence were killed in attacks involving east Jerusalem Arabs. |
