NEW YORK – One of the Palestinian Arab terrorists being sheltered in Yasir Arafat’s compound in Ramallah is responsible for attacks in which three American citizens were murdered and five wounded.
The Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported on April 24, 2002 reported that one of the terrorists being sheltered in Arafat’s compound in Ramallah is Mahmoud Damra, a leader of Arafat’s Force 17. Last year, the Israeli police announced that three members of Arafat’s Fatah and Force 17 whom they had captured, had confessed to being part of a gang led by Damra, which murdered Esh-Kodesh Gilmore (whose father was from Cleveland and whose mother was from Englewood, NJ) in Jerusalem on October 30, 2000, and the murders of Rabbi Binyamin Kahane and his wife Talia (formerly of Brooklyn, NY) in a drive-by shooting near the Israeli town of Ofra on Dec. 31, 2000; five of their six children were injured in the attack.
The Israeli government revealed earlier this month that among the approximately 250 terrorists holed up in the Church of the Nativity are Ibrahim Abyat and Ismail Hamdan, Fatah members who were involved in numerous terrorist attacks, including the murder of a 72 year-old U.S. citizen, Avi Boaz, on January 15, 2002. As a result, 84 American victims of Palestinian Arab violence sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Ashcroft, urging him to issue indictments against Abyat and Hamdan so they can be brought to the U.S. to stand trial.
Morton A. Klein, National President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), said: “Killers of Americans have been located in Ramallah and Bethlehem, yet our government has taken no action. The time has come for the Bush administration to tell Arafat that if he does not surrender them to U.S. authorities, the U.S. will end all relations with Arafat and use all means at our disposal to capture these killers and bring them to America for trial.”
The ZOA notes that President Bush said in his address to Congress on September 20, 2001: “From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.”