Israel Offensive Intensifies
Associated Press, Apr 2, 2002
Israel Offensive Intensifies
Tue Apr 2,12:58 AM ET
By LAURA KING, AP Special Correspondent
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Israeli forces moved into Bethlehem early
Tuesday after attacking Palestinian security headquarters near Ramallah
with tanks and machine guns, Palestinians said, signaling further intensification
of an offensive the Israelis say is aimed at stamping out terrorism.
Tanks entered Bethlehem from two directions, witnesses
said, heading toward the center of town, where the Church of the Nativity
marks the traditional birthplace of Jesus. Witnesses heard exchanges of
gunfire a few hundred yards from the church.
The Israeli military said forces took up controlling
positions in the town and were searching for suspected terrorists and weapons.
A statement said Israeli forces also searched three Palestinian villages
in the northern West Bank.
Earlier, the Israelis attacked the headquarters
of Palestinian Preventive Security outside Ramallah, firing tank shells
and machine guns, Palestinian officials said. Israeli helicopters also
fired at the building, they said, engulfing it in flames and causing many
casualties. West Bank security chief Jibril Rajoub had given orders to
the 400 men inside to resist. "Of course, I could not give a different
order," he said.
After daybreak, the flames had ebbed, leaving two
of the buildings in the compound smoldering, blackened wrecks, one with
a shattered roof. Holes were visible in the walls of several other buildings
in the compound.
Palestinian officials said that Israeli soldiers
used 60 Palestinian civilians as human shields in front of the tanks before
the assault. Army spokesman Olivier Rafowicz "categorically denied" the
charges. Israel banned reporters from the scene, and there was no independent
confirmation.
The battle wound down just before daybreak, Palestinian
officials said. In a statement, the Israeli military said many "leaders
responsible for the recent wave of terrorism" were holed up in the building
and had ignored an ultimatum to surrender.
Rajoub, who was not at the compound, told Israel
Radio, "The situation is very, very, very difficult." He denied that terrorist
suspects were in the building.
For the first time, a senior Israeli official gave
a timeframe for the military operation. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told
MSNBC, "We are in the territories for three or four weeks. We don't intend
to occupy the places."
Peres added that Israel does not intend to dismantle
the Palestinian Authority (news - web sites) or harm Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat (news - web sites).
Since the latest Israeli offensive began Friday
with an assault on Arafat's compound in Ramallah, Israeli forces have arrested
about 700 suspected militants, said military spokesman Brig. Gen. Ron Kitrey.
Spurred by a wave of bloody suicide attacks that
claimed more than 40 lives in five days, Israeli leaders said the military
drive was meant to smash a Palestinian terrorist infrastructure. Palestinians,
for their part, said Israel's tactics amounted to a campaign of state terror
against the civilian population.
On Monday, Israeli troops backed by armor pounded
a Ramallah building with anti-aircraft guns, briefly pushing into Bethlehem
and sending the deafening echo of tank shells through Palestinian streets.
Later Monday, Palestinians opened fire on an Israeli
car in the West Bank, wounding three members of a family. Israeli soldiers
fired back, killing one of the gunmen, the military said.
On another front, Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon
fired two rockets at Israel, the military said. The rockets exploded harmlessly
in fields. Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas,
has called for helping the Palestinians in their struggle against Israel.
Troops searching for Palestinian militants and weapons
caches carried out house-to-house searches and engaged in running battles
with gunmen. In the center of Ramallah, soldiers used vehicle-mounted anti-aircraft
guns to pulverize the facade of a building where Palestinian gunmen were
holed up, sending chunks of masonry plunging into the street.
Israeli forces also moved into the northern Palestinian
towns of Qalqilya and Tulkarem on Sunday night and Monday.
As Israeli forces advanced, Palestinian militants
were killing Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel. Ten bodies
were found in the West Bank, including seven taken by militants from a
temporary jail and shot in the streets of Tulkarem.
In the sixth Palestinian attack in six days, a car
bomb exploded near downtown Jerusalem, killing the driver and a policeman.
Police said the policeman stopped the car and the driver, a Palestinian,
set off the bomb. Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militia linked to Arafat's
Fatah (news - web sites) movement, claimed responsibility.
Sporadic gunfire rang out after dark in Ramallah,
a few miles to the north, where a tight curfew and continued fighting have
turned a busy commercial center into a ghost town. The boom of tank shells
was heard after night fell. Eight Israeli soldiers were injured — two seriously
— in Ramallah and another in Qalqilya, a military source said. The bodies
of two Palestinian police were found in a park in the city's center, Palestinian
military intelligence said.
Among the fugitives being hotly pursued by Israeli
forces in Ramallah was Palestinian militia leader Marwan Barghouti, a senior
Israeli security source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Israeli
officials have said Barghouti was involved in numerous deadly attacks on
civilians.
President Bush (news - web sites) called on Arafat
to put a stop to anti-Israeli attacks. "There will never be peace so long
as there is terror, and all of us must fight terror," Bush said.
Israeli soldiers set up more barricades in Ramallah's
streets, turning cars already smashed by tanks onto their sides to form
roadblocks. Pressing ahead with searches, Israeli soldiers broke down the
doors of homes in Ramallah and Qalqilya, Palestinians said.
"They smashed pictures that were on the wall and
looked everywhere, emptying closets and throwing around our clothes," said
26-year-old Nafiza Rouf, who said soldiers spent about two hours in her
Ramallah house. Her 24-year-old brother Niad was made to kneel motionless
while soldiers shouted questions and abuse at him, the family said.
An 11-year-old Palestinian boy was killed by gunfire
from Israeli soldiers as he played near a market in Rafah, in the Gaza
Strip (news - web sites), Palestinian hospital officials said.
In Ramallah, nearly all the dead over the course
of the incursion — at least 25, by Palestinian count — have been men in
their 20s and 30s. At Ramallah Hospital, the city's main medical center,
doctors pulled open the metal doors of the morgue to display bloodied bodies
of the young men, wrapped in sheets, and said they had not been allowed
to transport them out for burial.
Tanks had entered Bethlehem before dawn Monday and
an Israeli soldier was shot and killed by a Palestinian sniper, the military
said. The troops also moved into the nearby villages of Al Khader and Beit
Jall. The tanks pulled back to the edge of Bethlehem during the course
of the day before moving back in early Tuesday.
In an earlier major incursion, Israeli troops and
tanks moved into Bethlehem in mid-March. Soldiers went through the adjacent
Aida refugee camp, pounding holes in the walls of houses to get from one
to the other, searching for suspects and weapons caches.
In Beit Jalla, Israeli forces imposed a curfew and
occupied buildings overlooking Bethlehem.
Six foreigners protesting the Israeli invasion were
injured when they marched up to tanks in Beit Jalla, said doctors. One
woman was hit in the stomach by a bullet, and witnesses said the others
were struck by shrapnel after an Israeli soldier fired into the ground.
An Associated Press Television News cameramen, Iyad Hamad, was also lightly
injured. The military would not immediately comment on the incident.
State Department spokesman Philip Reeker criticized
Israel for injuring the protesters and said the military should investigate
the incident to prevent such incidents in the future.
Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat accused
Bush and the United Nations (news - web sites) of ignoring the Palestinians'
suffering. "There is total destruction, total state terror against the
Palestinians," Erekat told The Associated Press.
Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press