Israel Hits Back After Mob
Kills Two Soldiers
By Christine Hauser Oct 12 2:34pm ET
GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli
helicopter gunships blasted
targets near Yasser Arafat's
offices in two Palestinian-ruled
cities on Thursday after an angry
mob killed at least two captive
Israeli soldiers.
Israeli leaders called the raids a
limited response to a ''hideous
crime'' and said the operation had been
completed. Palestinians described the attacks
as all-out war.
Israelis and Palestinians said the spiraling
violence could deal a mortal blow to Middle East
peace efforts, as world statesmen urged both
sides to stop fighting and start talking.
Helicopters hit targets near the Palestinian
president's headquarters in the West Bank city
of Ramallah and in Gaza City hours after youths
stabbed the soldiers to death in ugly scenes in
Ramallah.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said Israel
could not let what he called the lynching of the
soldiers go unanswered. Deputy Prime Minister
Binyamin Ben-Eliezer later said a third Israeli
soldier may have been captured and killed.
``The action today is a warning signal to the
Palestinian Authority that it not misinterpret
Israel's restraint and desire for security and
peace,'' Barak said in a statement.
Arafat, who was unhurt, responded defiantly,
saying on a visit to wounded people in Gaza's
Shifa hospital that the Palestinian people would
remain strong and ``continue their march to
Jerusalem, the capital of the Palestinian
independent state.''
``There's no doubt that the peace process in its
present form... doesn't appear to have a chance
and if we want to revive the process, it will have
to be revived with other tools,'' Israel's acting
Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami declared.
But he said negotiations were ultimately the only
option.
``In the end even if we go into a confrontation,
however deep and hard it may be, we all
understand that there will be no choice but to
return to the negotiating table,'' he said.
PALESTINIANS CALL FOR U.N. ACTION
Palestinian Planning Minister Nabil Shaath said
the Palestinians wanted the U.N. Security
Council to meet urgently ''to stop the fighting and
the aggression against our people.''
Israel said it had given Palestinians three hours'
warning to evacuate targeted buildings in Gaza
and Ramallah.
An official of the Islamist Hamas movement said
Palestinian guards had abandoned prisons in
Gaza, allowing jailed Hamas militants and
common criminals to escape.
Hamas's spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin,
vowed revenge for the Israeli attacks. ``We will
spare no effort to retaliate for this aggression,''
he told Reuters. ``All options are open for the
Palestinian people to defend themselves.''
An Israeli army spokesman, Colonel Raanan
Gissin, said the mob had mutilated the two
soldiers in a ``hideous crime.''
``What happened today was something that
required an immediate and very severe
response and that is why we used the helicopter
gunships...to attack those targets, to send a very
clear message to Mr. Arafat and the leaders of
the Palestinian Authority -- don't mess with us,''
he said.
Palestinian hospitals said 17 people were
wounded in the reprisal raids, the toughest
Israeli military operation since clashes broke out
15 days ago.
At least 97 people have been killed, all but seven
of them Palestinians or Israeli Arabs, since
violence erupted on September 28 after Israeli
right-wing politician Ariel Sharon visited a
Jerusalem shrine holy to Muslims and Jews.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright urged
both sides to stop fighting immediately and
resume negotiations. ``We are in a very sad and
difficult period,'' she said in Washington.
``We are gravely concerned that incidents of this
kind can easily escalate into something even
more dangerous,'' U.S. National Security Council
spokesman P.J. Crowley said.
Crowley said Clinton had spoken to Arafat, U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan and British Prime
Minister Tony Blair about the latest violence, and
was expected to speak shortly with Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Barak.
MISSILES HIT CITIES
Plumes of black smoke curled into the sky in
Ramallah, where a radio transmission site near
Arafat's office, a police station and a security
headquarters were hit. The raid interrupted
power supplies for 18,000 people in Ramallah,
witnesses said.
An army communique said the two Israeli
reservists were killed in cold blood after getting
lost in Ramallah on their way to base and being
taken into Palestinian police custody.
``This (helicopter) action is a token signal to the
Palestinian Authority leadership that the Israeli
army will not sit idly by when acts of violence are
committed,'' it said.
Danny Yatom, an aide to Barak, said: ``The main
aim was to give (Arafat) a warning signal that the
rules of the game... have changed completely
following the lynching in Ramallah.''
Palestinian officials accused Israel of unleashing
full-scale war and appealed for international
intervention.
Peace negotiator Saeb Erekat said: ``What we
are witnessing is an all-out war against the
Palestinian people. We call upon the
international community for immediate
intervention.''
The welter of violence overshadowed world
efforts led by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan
to calm the crisis. He cut short a visit to Lebanon
and flew back to Israel.
Annan, who had gone to Beirut to discuss the
fate of three Israeli soldiers captured by
Hizbollah guerrillas on the Lebanese border on
Saturday, said he hoped peacemaking would
survive the latest shock.
``While it complicates it, I hope it doesn't mean
that we will not be able to find our way out of this
difficult and messy situation,'' he said.
SHIP ATTACK
In another bloody incident, an explosives-laden
rubber raft rammed a U.S. destroyer and
exploded in the Yemeni port of Aden, killing four
U.S. sailors and injuring 36, five seriously, U.S.
Navy officials said. One sailor was missing.
The White House said President Clinton was
horrified by what appeared to be a terrorist
attack on the USS Cole.
Oil prices roared to a fresh 10-year high
because of the violence, benchmark Brent crude
trading above $35 a barrel.
The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange plunged more than
seven percent and the shekel hit a 3-1/2 month
low against the dollar.
In the Ramallah attack, youths stormed the police
station and stabbed and beat two Israeli soldiers
being held there on suspicion of being
undercover men. At least one body was tossed
from a window into the crowd below and
trampled on.
Marwan Kanafani, an aide to Arafat, said
Palestinian police had tried to protect the
soldiers from the demonstrators, who were just
back from the funeral of a slain Palestinian. He
said 13 Palestinian policemen were injured in
the attempt. |
