[IDF
is the Israeli Defense Forces.]
Fatah and Hamas
gunmen in Tulkarm have declared a temporary cease-fire as searches continue
for an eight-year-old girl who went missing earlier this week. The cease-fire
was announced to avoid harming IDF soldiers and Israeli volunteers who are
helping in the searches for the girl, Nuran al Karmi.
Tulkarm residents
told The Jerusalem Post Thursday this was the first time that IDF soldiers and
volunteers from nearby kibbutzim and moshavim participate in such an effort.
Some residents went as far as to heap praise on the Israelis for their
readiness to help.
Nuran al Karmi is a
relative of Raed al Karmi, the former head of Fatah's armed group in Tulkarm,
who was killed by the IDF late last year. Security officials said Karmi was
responsible for a spate of terrorist attacks in which 10 people were killed,
including civilians and soldiers.
On Thursday the
Tulkarm governor convened the heads of all the PA's security forces and
political factions, as well as representatives of local clans, for an
emergency meeting to discuss the mystery surrounding Nuran's disappearance.
He said PA Chairman
Yasser Arafat was personally following the case of the missing girl and that
he had issued his instructions to the Palestinian police to make a special
effort to find her. For their part, leaders of the armed groups of Fatah and
Hamas have promised to refrain from launching attacks on IDF soldiers or
Israeli civilians so as not to disrupt the searches.
"It's an encouraging
sign that shows that despite all what's happening there is still a
humanitarian angle that can't be ignored," a leading Tulkarm businessman told
the Post. "We haven't seen Israeli civilians in the area almost since the
beginning of the intifada."
He said the IDF had
offered to help in the searches from the first day the girl went missing.
"They've shown a lot
of interest," the businessman added. "Many people here are moved by this
humanitarian gesture in spite of their great anger at the IDF."
On Saturday evening,
Nuran's family notified the Palestinian Authority's governor in Tulkarm, Izz
al Din al Sharif, of the girls' disappearance and asked him to call on
residents to assist in the searches. The governor and other Tulkarm notables
immediately informed the IDF. Local TV stations appealed for help, only to
discover that many of Tulkarm's Jewish neighbors wanted to take part in the
searches.
Nuran's family first
believed that she might have lost her way after she left her home during an
IDF-imposed curfew on the city. But witnesses told her parents that she was
last seen playing with other children near her home.
The IDF has
conducted its own searches in the city and its surroundings in an attempt to
establish the whereabouts of the missing girl, but to no avail. Dozens of
volunteers from Jewish and Arab communities inside the Green Line have also
been searching for the girl on the outskirts of Tulkarm in coordination with
the IDF. A number of Palestinian volunteers from Tulkarm have also been given
special permission to leave the besieged city to conduct their own
searches.
