MIDDLE EAST: Two months after Ali Ajouri of the Palestinian al-Aqsa Brigades organised a double suicide bombing that killed five civilians in Tel Aviv, his brother and sister are today to be expelled by Israel from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip, in an unprecedented move approved yesterday by the Israeli Supreme Court.
The nine-judge court unanimously approved the forced transfer for two years to Gaza of Intisar and Kifah Ajouri, having concluded that the two were themselves "involved in terrorism" and "presented a reasonable possibility of danger" which would be averted by their relocation.
In submissions accepted by the court, Israeli state prosecutors said Intisar Ajouri sewed the belts that held the bombers' explosives.
The court also accepted the submission that transfer to Gaza did not constitute "deportation" and was not a breach of international law, since the West Bank and Gaza represented a single territorial unit.
While this court decision was praised by the Israeli government and attacked by the Palestinian Authority and human rights groups - Amnesty International called the expulsion unlawful under the Fourth Geneva Convention - a second court ruling yesterday had the opposite effect.
The judges blocked the deportation of another Palestinian, Abdel Asidi, whose brother, Nasser, allegedly led two attacks on buses near a West Bank settlement in which 19 Israelis were killed.
It found insufficient evidence of Mr Asidi's involvement in his brother's activities, and ruled that "an innocent relatives who does not present a danger" could not be expelled, even if it was proved that doing so might deter others from carrying out terrorist acts.
Although the Israeli authorities have said they plan further expulsions, this ruling indicates that they would have to prove the direct involvement of potential expellees in attacks or risk the court's intervention.
The three Palestinians smiled and waved to relatives as they sat in the dock in Jerusalem awaiting the court's ruling; Intisar Ajouri obliged photographers by holding up a copy of the Koran to her face.
However, after the ruling had been delivered, her mother, Rashida, vowed bitterly that the Palestinians would not be defeated by Israel and, cradling her newborn grandchild in her arms, said that "babies of 20 days old will blow themselves up" in suicide attacks in the continuing struggle.
The Israeli army demolished the Ajouris' home, in a refugee camp near Nablus, two days after the July 17th bombings in Tel Aviv. The army killed Ali Ajouri on August 6th.
The Israeli Defence Minister, Mr Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, hailed the court's approval of the Ajouris' expulsion as "a new means" for Israel to combat the bombings.
He said that measures such as the house demolitions were demonstrably deterring such attacks; there have been no suicide bombings in Israel for the past month.
But ministers in the Palestinian Authority spoke of a "black day for human rights". The PA's Labour Minister, Ghassan Khatib, and said they would raise the matter at the UN and file a complaint to the International Criminal Court.
Two Palestinians were killed by an Israeli tank shell outside Nablus in the early hours of yesterday morning. The army said they were attempting to inflitrate a Jewish settlement and that one was seen to be carrying a weapon. Palestinian sources said neither man was armed.