Israel kills nine in bloody operation
Israeli forces armed with tanks and helicopters clashed with Palestinians in Gaza before daybreak today, killing nine Palestinians in the bloodiest operation there in two months.
The army launched the raid into two Gaza City neighbourhoods as Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat dug in at his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah, refusing to yield to an Israeli siege and demands for about 200 men inside to surrender.
The US administration criticised the Israeli blockade, following stiff European and Arab condemnations.
The Gaza incursion was Israel’s largest since the current round of Palestinian-Israeli violence began two years ago, according to witnesses and Palestinian security officials.
They said at least 60 Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles were involved.
Nine people were killed and another 24 injured in clashes with the invading Israelis, said Dr Moawia Hassanein, director of emergency services at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital.
Yesterday, prime minister Ariel Sharon said Israel had been preparing an incursion in Gaza to crack down on the militant group Hamas and extend the army’s efforts to dismantle weapons factories there.
“We of course haven’t completed our work in the Gaza Strip,” he told a group of soldiers.
“The day will come, as soon as we can get the necessary troops together, that we will of course have to do this to strike at Hamas and prevent its ability to act.”
An Israeli official said Israel was considering expelling Hamas leaders Sheik Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi from the Gaza Strip.
The official said no decision had been made.
Israel has been sending tanks and troops into Gaza several times a week, targeting metal workshops where they say weapons are made and blowing up houses of suspected militants, but this was the first time such an incursion set off large-scale clashes.
In searches in the Zaitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City, soldiers discovered and detonated 13 weapons workshops used to make Qassam rockets, the military said, adding that it has found 58 weapons workshops in Gaza so far this month.
The army said no soldiers were injured.
The toll was the largest in a single day in Gaza since an Israeli air strike on July 23 killed a senior Hamas militant, Salah Shehadeh, and 14 others, including nine children.
A few hours earlier in the West Bank, more than 1,000 Palestinians, many honking car horns and banging dustbin lids, took to the streets of Ramallah, defying Israeli curfew to support Arafat in the face of the siege on his headquarters.
Also yesterday, in the West Bank city of Hebron, an Israeli man was killed and three of his children - aged nine, 12 and 18 - were wounded in a Palestinian shooting attack as thousands of Israelis marched to a disputed holy site - the Tomb of the Patriarchs - to mark the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot.
The US administration criticised the Israeli assault against Arafat, entering its fifth day, saying in a statement it had “aggravated” efforts to improve security and to reform the Palestinian leadership.
Israeli critics of Sharon say the third siege in 10 months has revived the Palestinian leader’s popularity and thwarted American and Israeli efforts to sideline him.
The assault on Arafat’s office has made an already tense situation even more volatile. With Arafat ringed by troops and confined to a building Palestinians claim is in danger of collapse, Israel
cannot guarantee the Palestinian leader’s safety.
Harm to Arafat could ignite the region.
Arafat’s isolation has triggered other street protests - some orchestrated and others spontaneous - reminiscent of the scenes that marked the beginning of Palestinian-Israeli fighting two years ago.
Yesterday, about 10,000 people - including many schoolchildren bused in - held a rally in Gaza as they observed a commercial strike.
Many protesters burned tires or pelted soldiers with rocks - events rarely seen in recent months.
For the first time since Israeli tanks crashed into the compound Thursday, Israeli military officials and Palestinian leaders met yesterday in search of a solution to the latest crisis. No progress was reported.
Israel moved into Arafat’s compound after two back-to-back suicide attacks in the Israeli cities of Umm al-Fahm and Tel Aviv last week, killing the two bombers and seven other people.
Israel is demanding that all the men in Arafat’s office building surrender for questioning.
Israel originally said 19 terror suspects were inside the building, including Tawfik Tirawi, the Palestinian intelligence chief.
