USA Today · McLean, VA · 5 December 2005

CP-2005-029

Islamic Jihad leader lives to fight holy war

Israel targets members of militant faction

By Matthew Gutman, USA TODAY

Scan 860 × 1445 pixels

Transcribed from the clipping

TULKAREM REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank — Imad Abu Diab knows he is a dead man. Two assassination attempts he blames on the Israeli army have left him a patchwork of platinum rods and skin grafts. Of 40 wanted Islamic Jihad militants who lived in this refugee camp five years ago, only three have survived the fighting between Israel and the Palestinians.

Abu Diab, 28, an Islamic Jihad leader, is one of them. Israel declared open season on Islamic Jihad in the West Bank after the Iranian-backed group claimed responsibility for four suicide attacks in Israel. In a raid last week in Jenin, Israeli forces captured Iyad Abu el-Roub, a senior Islamic Jihad commander in the northern West Bank, Israel said.

On Sunday, Israeli jets retaliating for missile attacks bombed targets in Gaza, including an Islamic Jihad charity. The Israeli military said the charity disbursed payments to the families of dead terrorists. Frail and sallow-cheeked, Abu Diab barely mourns the loss of so many fighters. "There are more important things than living," he says.

How this transcription was made

Date confirmed on the page (folio-verified).

Context added by this archive

Folio reads 'USA TODAY · MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2005 · 9A'; 5 Dec 2005 was a Monday, so date and page are verified. LABEL ORDER: see the note on s067_1 — the two images on this slide are in the reverse order from Maria's label. 'World' above the headline is a SECTION FLAG, not a deck; the deck is the stacked 'Israel targets members of militant faction' in the first column.

This is the most Palestinian-voiced clipping in the batch: the reporter goes into Tulkarem refugee camp, spends an hour at a safe house, names and ages a Palestinian man, records his injuries, his daughter, his brothers in prison, and lets him speak five times. Golan appears only as the source of a troop-strength estimate and is not quoted.

Two photo captions: 'Attack in Gaza: Palestinian police inspect damage to the building of an Islamic Jihad charity after a missile attack Sunday. The Israeli military said the charity disbursed payments to the families of dead terrorists.' (By Mohammed Salem, Reuters) and 'Remembering fallen comrades: Palestinian youths pray Nov.

2 in Qabatiya, West Bank, beside the graves of Islamic Jihad militants Arshad Abu Zaid and Jihad Zakarneh. The two men were killed by Israeli troops on Oct. 30.' (By Abed Omar Qusini, Reuters). The clipping is pasted over part of an unrelated page about Flight 19 and the Bermuda Triangle, which is not part of this article.

Columns three and four were read at page magnification except where a crop is noted above. Casualty totals as printed, verified from a crop: the conflict 'began in September 2000 and claimed the lives of about 1,000 Israelis and more than 3,700 Palestinians'.

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