i W .1 6A
Israeli
on Jericho, Ramallah, Hebron
by Michael Zielenziger
and Nomi Morris
November 02, 2000
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
JERUSALEM Israeli helicopters
unleashed a major assault on the
Palestinian towns of Jericho,
Ramallah and Hebron on Wednes
day night after a day of fierce fight
ing in which five Palestinians and
three Israeli soldiers were killed.
The bombing continued late into
the night, apparently in retaliation
for the deaths of the Israeli soldiers,
who were killed in gun battles with
Palestinian guerrillas.
In Ramallah, which is about 10
miles from Jerusalem, the Israeli
Army lobbed rockets at the head
quarters of Tazim, a military branch
of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s
Fatah organization.
In Jericho, Israeli helicopters tar
geted a building being used as a
training center for Palestinian secu
rity forces. Witnesses said the build
ing exploded into a ball of fire af
ter rockets struck it.
There was also heavy fire in
Hebron, and the Israeli Army
warned the Palestinian Broadcast
ing Authority to evacuate its build
ing there.
Earlier in the day, Israelis were
shaken as a bomb exploded in a
wealthy section of West Jerusalem,
near the home of Israeli President
Moshe Katsav.
“Today there was a very negative
jump in the scope and severity of
events,” said Danny Yatom, Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s secu-
rity aide.
Thursday promises to hold more
unrest. The Palestinian Authority
has called on residents of the West
Bank and Gaza to close shop
schools on Thursday in a general
strike.
“We will not give up our politi
cal negotiations for peace,” said
Alu you can£AT
IH/IMq-NITE
BB^TUESPAye^W
gStyavKrn»e.LV6£
helicopters launch major assault
Mohammed Dahlan, head of Pre
ventative Security Services in the
West Bank. “But at the same time
we will defend ourselves and our
cities against the Israeli aggres
sion.”
Israelis bombed the Palestinian
towns despite a meeting Wednesday
night between Arafat and former Is
raeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres
that was called to explore ways to
stop the fighting. Acting Israeli For
eign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami met
with Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright in Washington on Wednes
day. Palestinian negotiator Sacb
Erekat is slated to meet with
Albright on Friday in the United
States.
“We will act in exactly the nec
essary way, the manner and measure
in order to serve the needs of the
state of Israel," Barak said before
heading into a meeting of his secu
rity cabinet, where he apparently
approved the late-night strikes on
Palestinian towns.
It was a violent culmination to a
violent day.
Two Israeli soldiers and two Pal
estinians were killed in a four-hour
gun battle in El Khader, near
Bethlehem. The two Israelis were
among four soldiers who were am
bushed. Israeli troops deployed a
helicopter gunship to try to rescue
the soldiers.
The third Israeli soldier, on pa
trol outside Jericho, was killed af
ter he was attacked by armed Pal-
estinians
Fierce clashes erupted Wednes
day near the Kami crossing in Gaza,
killing three Palestinians, two of
them aged 15 and the other 17, Pal
estinian medical officials said. It
was the same area where four Pal
estinians were killed Tuesday.
Near Jerusalem, the Jewish settle
ment of Gilo again came under
heavy fire from the Palestinian town
of Beit Jala, on a neighboring hill
side. Israeli return Fire slammed into
a building in Beit Jala. There were
no reports of casualties in that
battle.
One Gilo resident, Dalia
Suleimani, told Israeli Radio that
her family was trapped inside its
house by the intense gunfire.
“We are sitting in the small cor
ridor between the kitchen and the
bedroom, because there are win
dows in all the other rooms,” she
said, “t’s dark the whole time, be
cause we are afraid to turn on the
lights. It’s a terrible situation.”
The death toll in Five weeks of un
rest stands at 163, most of them Pal
estinian. There was no immediate
information on any deaths and in
juries from Wednesday night’s
bombings.
After a day of some of the most
intense clashes since efforts to fi
nalize a Middle East peace deal ef
fectively came undone, a glum
faced Barak appealed to the Israeli
people to persevere.
“We are facing difficult days,”
Barak said. “We find ourselves in a
period in which the ability of the en
tire society to endure . . . will de
termine the results of this whole
testing time.”
Barak spoke to the nation only
about an hour after the explosion in
West Jerusalem jarred many Israe
lis, as it showed that the unrest has
reached into the heart of the city.
Nobody was hurt in the explo
sion. Michael Frischer, a 35-year
old driving instructor, was teaching
a student how to parallel park when
the blast detonated some 12 feet
away by the side of the road.
“The other car saved us. It's full
of holes,” said Frischer. “It’s a good
thing my student hadn’t begun to re
verse the car yet.” Debris from the
explosion blew out one of
Frischer’s tires.
“This area is near the president’s
house. There is tons of security
//a.
NEWS
around here and still it happened,”
lamented Yitzhak Gispan, a 46-
year-old municipal employee who
was riding his moped when the blast
occurred.
“This is a terrible feeling of fear
and insecurity.”
Meeting in Washington before the
attacks, Albright and Ben-Ami dis
cussed the agreement Barak and
Arafat reached with Clinton two
weeks ago in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt
to stop the fighting. They also dis
cussed the controversial fact- find
ing commission that is supposed to
determine the causes of the violence
and how to prevent a recurrence.
In her meeting with Erekat, U.S.
officials said Albright will stress the
importance of avoiding inflamma
tory public comments. Both she and
President Clinton have been criti
cal of recent comments by Arafat
who, among other things, said that
Barak could “go to hell” unless he
recognized Palestinian sovereignty
over east Jerusalem.
Despite the diplomatic shuttles,
few hold out any hope that the
United States will be able to do any
thing to stop the violence.
“The Israeli and Palestinian lead
ership have to talk to each other,”
said Jon Alterman, a Middle East
expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace
in Washington. “Simply bringing
them together in a formal way
doesn’t cause them to either solve
their internal problems or move for
ward together on their joint prob
lems.”
Alterman said the United States
may well be taking serious moves
to try to curtail the violence.
“The truth is I don't know what
the U.S. is doing and you don’t
know what the U.S. is doing. The
things that are helpful now are not
the things that should be made pub
lic. They’re really dull but they're
important. And ultimately they save
a lot of people's lives.”
™ H fj) fr ${ vaLJSsSS^-rtT^/
flf I M I PJ w. g D
to
fflgl!’® IFM 4
m/?6l§
a if
Toil Kappa Epsi
CHampioNS
Grandmother accused of directing
crime ring from her wheelchair
by Nicole Sterghos Brochu
October 27, 2000
Knight-Ridder Tribune
Frail and wracked by arthritis,
Ernestine Williams spends her days
in a wheelchair.
But that didn’t stop the Boynton
Beach grandmother from com
manding a multistate racketeering
operation for 10 years, state agents
said this week.
In that time, authorities said, she
built a highly organized crime ring
based in southern Palm Beach
County. Williams’ group allegedly
picked hundreds of elderly victims’
pockets and used their stolen credit
cards to buy merchandise that was
later sold for a substantial profit.
The group left a trail of victims
from Miami to Atlanta, Florida De
partment of Law Enforcement offi
cials said. A good day netted the
group $52,000, which agents said
amounted to hundreds of thousands
of dollars since 1998.
A two-year investigation ended
early Wednesday morning when the
63-year-old Williams and three fam
ily members son Timothy Butts,
42, daughter Tomeka Williams, 31,
and grandson Jessie Williams, 19
were rustled from their beds and
charged with racketeering and con
spiracy to commit racketeering.
If convicted of racketeering, they
each face 15 to 20 years in prison.
A first-degree felony, racketeering
charges are typically used to attack
organized patterns of criminal ac
tivity. They were held in lieu of
$lOO,OOO bond. All eight suspects
have extensive arrest records,
mostly for theft and drug charges.
“You don’t have to be a Mafia don
to do organized crime,” said
Michael D. Washam, special agent
supervisor of FDLE’s West Palm
Beach office. "This is as organized
as they get.”
The grandmother was smooth,
gradually building up a sophisti-
AND
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2000
cated 15-person operation and get
ting a cut of the profits, authorities
said. Williams also personally tu
tored each of her charges and went
along on almost all of the pick
pocket missions that she called
“shopping trips,” they said.
To avoid detection, the time from
a wallet theft to the merchandise
sale of the merchandise was short
usually one or two days, agents
said. Most of the thefts and pur
chases were in Georgia and other
parts of Florida, but Washam said
the goods were resold in the area.
As yet, agents have identified no
buyers.
Many members of Williams’ core
group were enticed to join the en
terprise with crack cocaine,
Washam said. The so-called “shop
pers” told agents they earned up to
$l,OOO a day and later spent much
of it buying drugs from Ernestine
Williams, known on the street as
“the drug lady.”
Her arrest record dates back to a
1960 shoplifting charge and in
cludes at least 28 theft and drug
charges.
Agents said it was Ernestine Wil
liams’ son, Timothy Butts, who was
responsible for providing the opera
tion with drugs and vehicles, spend
ing more than $3,000 for rental cars
and trucks in seven months.
Butts also bragged to group mem
bers that he was able to provide sto
len credit cards from professional
athletes, including Tennessee Titans
player Kenneth Holmes. But it was
his mother who Washam said was
the most enterprising and elusive.
Suspicious officers investigating
retail robberies often stopped her car
after the thefts, he said. But, seeing
a frail woman and a wheelchair in
the car, they promptly let her go.
“Nobody thought that a 60-some
thing-year-old lady in a wheelchair
would be involved in something like
this, when, in fact, she was the ring
leader," Washam said.
jv-n Va /O /Tv
ip
mV
» V'\
i \\
Vi
y \i