Heavy fighting as Israeli offensive likely to be cut short

Israeli troops have taken over most Palestinian population centres in the West Bank in a 10-day-old offensive, Israel’s biggest in two decades.

But the fighters in Jenin and Nablus have prevented the Israelis from taking full control of the cities and conducting house-to-house searches for militants, as has been the case elsewhere in the West Bank.

There were hints of friction between the Israeli government and its military command as officers sought more time for the military operation, but Cabinet ministers talked of bringing it to an end due to international pressure.

US President George Bush called on Saturday on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to pull his troops out of the Palestinian areas ‘‘without delay’’.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell, due in the region this week to try to resolve the crisis, said both sides would have to do more to end the fighting.

‘‘Until the violence goes down at least to a level where you can see that both sides are acting in a responsible way and trying to cooperate in a ceasefire, you’re not going to get to a peace agreement,’’ Powell said on the NBC television news programme Meet the Press.

In a 20-minute phone call late on Saturday, Sharon told Bush the Israeli army would ‘‘expedite’’ the mission. At the beginning of the weekly Cabinet meeting today, Sharon defended the offensive, calling it ‘‘a war for our homes’’.

‘‘We have no interest in dragging it out, but we have to do the job,’’ Sharon told Israeli television.

Neither Sharon nor anyone else in his government has set a timetable for pulling out. Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said the military should operate as long as possible to ‘‘clean out terrorism’’ in the West Bank, but acknowledged that in light of Bush’s demand, ‘‘our hourglass is running out’’.

Still, the military appeared to be pressing for time. According to Israel Radio, the army’s Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Shaul Mofaz told the Cabinet he needed eight weeks to complete the job.

‘‘The critical element is time,’’ he told a briefing for reporters. ‘‘We need time to get to all the centres of terrorism in the West Bank and Gaza.’’

Major General Dan Harel, chief of military planning, warned that if the army pulls out too soon, ‘‘then another series of devastating terror attacks will hit Israel’s cities and streets. And then we’ll go (back) in’’.

Israeli tanks and troops maintained their positions just outside Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s office in the town of Ramallah, but for the fourth day in a row, the fighting was focused on Nablus and Jenin in the northern part of the West Bank.

Palestinians said gunmen held Israeli troops at bay on the edge of the Old City in Nablus, with its winding, dusty alleys and close-packed buildings, ideal locations for snipers. Israel called in attack helicopters to fight the entrenched gunmen.

Israeli tanks shelled targets in Nablus this afternoon, witnesses said. At least 10 Palestinians were killed in today’s fighting, Palestinians said.

Nablus Governor Mahmoud Aloul said there were dead bodies in an old mosque and 65 of the wounded were receiving treatment there because ambulances could not get in.

Among those killed today was Ahmed Tabouk, 38, a militia leader linked to Arafat’s Fatah movement. His body was in a field as gunbattles kept Palestinians from retrieving it.

It was a similar scene in the Nablus streets, where Palestinians could not remove the bodies of fallen fighters due to the intense shooting. The streets are carpeted with fragments of stone and cement that have been blasted from buildings, and the Palestinians have set up burning tyre barricades to obscure the vision of Israeli troops.

‘‘We have found explosives laboratories, including one which was very advanced and well equipped, with a production line from the raw materials to the finished product,’’ said Israeli Colonel Aviv Kochavi, head of the paratroop brigade fighting in the Old City.

‘‘We are moving forward slowly but surely, mostly on foot,’’ he said. ‘‘Here and there we managed to get armoured vehicles in, where the street was wide enough.

Israel has barred reporters from Nablus and other areas where the military is operating in the West Bank, though the measure has not been enforced consistently.

There was also fierce fighting in the Jenin refugee camp, 25 miles north of Nablus.

Israeli soldiers fought their way to the centre of the Jenin camp this morning, Israel Radio reported.

Army spokesman Brigadier General Ron Kitrey said: ‘‘We are on the verge of ending the fighting in the refugee camp.’’

But he added that soldiers would seek to round up militants and would not immediately leave the area. ‘‘The resistance was very tough, perhaps tougher than expected,’’ he said.

In the camp, a leader of the militant Hamas, Abdel Salaam, said people were confined to their homes. ‘‘We are talking to each other through windows only when the shelling stops,’’ he said in a call on his mobile phone.

Since the Israeli incursion began March 29, more than 90 Palestinian have been killed in West Bank fighting, and more than 10 Israeli soldiers. Also, 1,413 Palestinians have been detained, including 361 who were on Israel’s wanted lists, and more than 1,400 rifles have been confiscated, the military said in a statement.

In Bethlehem, a standoff between Israeli forces and gunmen and clerics holed up in the Church of the Nativity continued for a sixth day. Through the night, Israeli soldiers using loudspeakers demanded that the gunmen surrender, but they remained inside the church marking the traditional birthplace of Jesus.

In Gaza, meanwhile, Israeli soldiers shot and killed two Palestinians who were planting a large bomb near a Jewish settlement, the military said.

:: The Israeli military today ordered civilians along the border with Lebanon to enter bomb shelters after cross-border attacks left several injured.

Guerrillas opened fire on several Israeli villages and army bases from Lebanon, the military said.

Two women were injured at the village of Avivim, one seriously, rescue workers said.

In other attacks, rifle fire was aimed at Kibbutz Manara, a collective farming community next to the border in the Galilee panhandle, a strip of Israeli territory bordering Lebanon. No injuries were reported.