Shin Bet gives IDF, police `harvest incident' suspects

Shin Bet security service chief Yuval Diskin said yesterday that his agency has given the army and police identifying details of "hilltop youth" from the West Bank settlements of Yitzhar and Itamar who are suspected of having cut down olive trees belonging to Palestinians.

A Palestinian family reported Friday that 120 of its olive trees had been cut down in the southern Hebron Hills, and the Judea and Samaria District Police said there have been 17 "harvest incidents" in 2005, including physical attacks on Palestinian harvesters, the theft of harvested olives, and trespassing.

Speaking to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Diskin added that there has been a major increase in the amount of arms being smuggled into the Gaza Strip. He predicted that Hamas would resume its terror activities, albeit in a more sophisticated way, after the January 25 Palestinian parliamentary elections.

Diskin harshly criticized other law-enforcement agencies - a barb aimed at the Israel Defense Forces and the police - for "rolling their eyes heavenward" and not doing anything about attacks on the olive groves because the perpetrators were hilltop youth.

Diskin said Palestinians' olive trees are uprooted every year during the harvest season.

He said the Shin Bet wanted to place the hilltop youth suspected of causing the damage under administrative detention, but was prevented from doing so.

MK Ran Cohen (Meretz-Yahad), who raised the olive-tree issue at the committee meeting, accused the security establishment and Shin Bet of totally failing to catch "the criminals who uproot trees." He called on Diskin to ambush the suspects, and, if necessary, fire at their legs.

MKs Aryeh Eldad and Uri Ariel (National Union) were angered by Cohen's comments, and accused him of calling for murder.

Describing the security situation in the Gaza Strip, Diskin said that since the disengagement, the amount of weapons-smuggling from Egypt has increased by hundreds of percent.

Since the disengagement, he said, 5,871 kilograms of standard explosives have been smuggled into Gaza (compared to zero between January and September 2005), along with 350 anti-tank shells (compared to 50 last year), 300 anti-tank missile launchers (compared to four last year), and 5,871 rifles (compared to 1,784 last year).