Israeli Forces Overrun Arafat's HQ
Sat Mar 30,12:55 AM ET
By HADEEL WAHDAN, Associated Press Writer
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Israeli troops backed by
tanks swarmed into Yasser Arafat's
headquarters Friday, punching holes in walls and
fighting room to room as the Palestinian leader huddled
in a windowless office and made frantic appeals to world
leaders by cell phone.
Early Saturday morning, Israeli
tanks also rumbled into a Palestinian
town adjoining biblical Bethlehem
where Christians are observing
Easter weekend, but did not enter
Bethlehem itself, Palestinians said.
Five Palestinians and two Israeli
soldiers were killed as Israeli forces
took over the West Bank city of
Ramallah and Arafat's sprawling
compound, where 25 Palestinians
were wounded and 60 detained.
In a Palestinian attack in Jerusalem,
an 18-year-old woman blew herself
up at the entrance of a supermarket,
killing herself and two Israelis. The
Al-Aqsa Brigades, a militia close to
Arafat's Fatah (news - web sites)
movement, said it sent the bomber.
The Ramallah operation was
described by Israeli officials as the
first stage of a much larger assault
aimed at destroying the "terrorist
infrastructure" that Israelis blame
for the hundreds of deaths they have
suffered in 18 months of relentless violence. More than a
thousand Palestinians also have died.
Israel said it had no plans to kill Arafat but wanted to
isolate him. He scoffed at the assurance.
"They were shelling us continuously in the last 24
hours," Arafat said in a telephone interview with CNN,
during which machine-gun fire could be heard in the
background.
"They are using all the American weapons against us,"
he added. The United States supplies Israel with the
bulk of its military hardware.
Throughout the day, Israeli tanks shelled buildings in
the compound and soldiers entered buildings and traded
fire with Palestinians. By nightfall, Arafat was trapped in
his three-story office building, which was plunged into
darkness when soldiers cut off electricity and destroyed
a generator.
The boxed in leader followed events on television, giving
phone interviews to TV channels and speaking by cell
phone to more than a dozen world leaders. Arafat
pleaded for immediate help, but was not given real
promises, one of his aides said.
In New York, the U.N. Security Council convened an
emergency session Friday to consider the upsurge in
violence. An Arab group demanded in a resolution a
Mideast cease-fire and that Israel withdraw troops from
Palestinian cities, including Ramallah.
Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) held a
half hour conversation with Arafat during which he
delivered a stern message to curtail terrorism, U.S.
officials said.
The Palestinians said Arafat also spoke several other
leaders, including U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan
(news - web sites), Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
(news - web sites), Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri,
Arab League leader Amr Moussa, Libyan leader Moammar
Gadhafi and the heads of various African nations.
A submachine gun placed on the table in front of him,
Arafat was defiant. "They want me under arrest or in
exile or dead, but I am telling them, I prefer to be
martyred," he said in a telephone interview with
Al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite television channel. "May
God make us martyrs."
In yet another interview, with Jordanian state-run
television, Arafat described Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon (news - web sites) as "bloodthirsty" and bent on
"blowing up" a collective Arab peace initiative endorsed
Thursday. He added that the United States "could have
ordered him (Sharon) to end the attacks. Why are they
quiet despite all that is taking place?"
In Washington, Powell said Sharon had told the United
States that Arafat would not be harmed. Powell urged the
Israeli prime minister to use restraint and consider the
consequences of escalation. But he added: "Let's be clear
about what brought it all to a halt - terrorism."
During the Security Council meeting, Deputy U.S.
Ambassador James Cunningham warned that Arafat
should not be harmed.
"Chairman Arafat is the leader of the Palestinian people.
His leadership is now, and will be, central to any
meaningful effort to restore calm," Cunningham said.
Despite the violence, U.S. truce envoy Anthony Zinni
continued his mission, meeting with Palestinian
negotiator Saeb Erekat on Friday and speaking to Arafat
by phone.
Erekat said Israel's "endgame is to kill Arafat," an accusation that Sharon
spokesman Ranaan Gissin dismissed as "nonsense."
The latest escalation began with a suicide bombing Wednesday in an Israeli hotel
banquet hall that killed 22 diners during a Passover Seder, the ritual meal at the
start of the weeklong Jewish holiday. It was followed by attacks on two Jewish
settlements Thursday and Friday that killed six Israelis.
On Friday morning, after an all-night session, Sharon's Cabinet declared Arafat
an "enemy" and said the Palestinian leader would be completely isolated. Israel
began calling up reserve soldiers, and the mobilization was expected to reach
20,000 troops, the largest in a decade.
Hours later, Israeli troops and two dozen tanks swarmed into Arafat's walled
compound - an area the size of a city block with a jumble of several
interconnected buildings, surrounded by a high wall with three gates.
Israeli troops know every inch of Arafat's three story-office building - it was the
Israeli military headquarters in Ramallah until Israel withdrew from the city in
1995. The bottom floor has guard rooms, the middle floor houses Arafat's office,
dining room and sleeping quarters, and the top has more offices.
In Friday's assault, heavy tank and gunfire hit the building's first and third floors,
Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said - the first time Israel directly
targeted the building. Israeli snipers took positions on rooftops, and tanks shelled
the intelligence headquarters in the complex.
Israeli troops broke into structures adjacent to Arafat's offices and punched holes
in walls, moving room to room toward his building. At one point, they broke
through a wall into the office building itself and traded fire with Palestinians
through the hole, the Palestinians said.
But the military said its soldiers did not enter the building. Maj. Gen. Yitzhak
Eitan, commander of Israeli troops in the West Bank, said troops were in control
of the whole compound except Arafat's offices. He said large amounts of weapons
were found and about 60 people were detained. Abed Rabbo told CNN those
detained were unarmed, mostly secretaries and drivers.
Palestinian security officials in the West Bank town of Beit Jala, which borders
Bethlehem, said an Israeli armored column entered early Saturday morning but
did not immediately move on to Bethlehem itself.
An army statement said troops took up positions in Beit Jala after Palestinians
there shot at the nearby Jewish neighborhood of Gilo, which lies in a disputed
part of Jerusalem claimed by both sides. The military said shots were also fired
at Israeli troops driving on a road in a valley below Beit Jala.
The statement said soldiers also entered Palestinian territory near the West
Bank town of Nablus and arrested a suspected militant from the radical Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Earlier this month, the Israeli military carried out an extensive operation in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip (news - web sites), sending 20,000 soldiers into towns,
villages and refugee camps in a hunt for Palestinian militants. That operation
was the biggest since Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
Zinni, the U.S. envoy, had reported some progress toward a cease-fire this week.
Israel had accepted Zinni's timetable for implementing a truce with some
reservations, while the Palestinians sought more clarifications.
Thursday evening, with Israeli retaliation for the Passover bombing already
imminent, Arafat said he was ready to immediately implement the U.S. truce
plan without conditions. But he stopped short of formally declaring a cease-fire.
Sharon later said Israel had sought a cease-fire but only received "terrorism,
terrorism and more terrorism."
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