Israeli troops surround Arafat compound
Israeli troops surrounded Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s compound early today, as a helicopter attack on Gaza gunmen killed two and wounded at least 17.
Soldiers took up positions around Arafat’s office building in the West Bank city of Ramallah, witnesses said.
They said Israeli military vehicles surrounded the complex and soldiers took over buildings across the compound. There were no reports of gunfire.
Israeli military officials said soldiers were arresting suspects, but the operation was not linked to Arafat’s office.
The violence followed a pledge by Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to come up with a new plan to replace ”unilateral disengagement” from Gaza, voted down by his own party.
Witnesses said gunmen fired two missiles at Israeli tanks in the Khan Younis camp before an attack helicopter struck back.
The attack came during an Israeli military operation in two parts of the camp. Tanks and bulldozers tore down four buildings near a Jewish settlement. Witnesses said.
The Israeli operation happened a day after Palestinian gunmen opened fire on an Israeli vehicle on a nearby road, killing a pregnant settler and her four young daughters.
Doctors at Khan Younis hospital said five of the wounded were in a critical condition. Some civilians were among the wounded, they said.
Although Sharon’s Likud Party soundly defeated his plan to pull out of Gaza in a referendum, Sharon was adamant yesterday. “I want to say in the clearest fashion there will be another plan,” he told a meeting of Likud MPs, according to a participant.
Israeli officials suggested the plan – which had won US backing and was popular with Israelis – would be slightly scaled down, and the new version would not be put to a Likud vote.
Sharon had proposed his “disengagement plan” as the best way to obtain security for Israel in the absence of peace moves and to defuse international pressure for greater concessions.
Residents of the Gaza settlement of Neve Dekalim, who had energetically campaigned against the plan, symbolically declared victory yesterday by laying the cornerstone for a new neighbourhood. “It says we’re here to stay,” said Esther Lilienthal, 67.
Sharon said he would present his new plan to parliament and to the cabinet, but not to another party referendum.
“The Likud members said ‘No’ to a specific plan, not to all plans,” cabinet minister Tzipi Livni said.
Sharon’s original plan envisaged an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, home to 7,500 settlers in 21 settlements, and the evacuation of four small settlements in the West Bank by the end of 2005.
Last month US president George Bush tried to boost Sharon’s chances in the referendum, endorsing the plan and giving him unprecedented assurances that in a final peace deal Israel would not have to withdraw from all of the West Bank.
In Washington, US state department spokesman Richard Boucher said the vote was a “setback” for Sharon. He said the disengagement plan could still be a way to move peace talks forward, but added: “I don’t think we’ve hitched our wagon to any single effort.”
Moderate members of Sharon’s coalition said the disengagement plan had strong public support and demanded it be presented to the cabinet, saying it was absurd to give a tiny fraction of the population a virtual veto over matters of such vital importance to the nation.
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