Offensive Won't Stop, Sharon Says
By Mohammed Daraghmeh
Associated Press Writer
Monday, April 8, 2002; 12:10 PM
NABLUS, West Bank –– Israel's offensive in the West Bank will continue, despite U.S. demands for an immediate withdrawal of troops, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told parliament Monday, as helicopter gunships pounded a Palestinian refugee camp and a fire broke out during fighting near Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity.
Addressing a special session of the Knesset, Sharon said he has promised President Bush to expedite the campaign, now in its 11th day.
Turning to the Arab world, Sharon said he was willing to meet with Arab leaders without preconditions to discuss a comprehensive peace agreement. Sharon branded Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat the head of a "regime of terror."
Later Monday, U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni met with Sharon, U.S. officials said.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, meanwhile, demanded "a clear statement from Israel that they are beginning to withdraw" from Palestinian territories and "to do it now." Powell, speaking after a meeting in Agadir, Morocco, with King Mohammed VI, said he had asked the king to counsel Arafat to halt violence against Israelis, and said he hopes to see the Palestinian leader later in the week.
The heaviest fighting raged in the West Bank city of Nablus and the Jenin refugee camp where hundreds of gunmen have been battling Israeli soldiers. Israeli officials estimated that more than 100 Palestinians have been killed in Jenin camp. Two Israeli soldiers were killed and one was seriously wounded in the camp Monday.
The armed men "seem to have decided to fight to the last, to make the battle as bloody as possible," said the Israeli commander in the area, Brig. Gen. Eyal Shline.
He said many houses in the camp were booby-trapped and that several men with explosives strapped to their bodies have blown themselves up in suicide attacks.
Before daybreak Monday, Israeli attack helicopters began firing missiles at the camp after militants ignored calls to surrender. Jamal Abdel Salam, a camp resident and activist in the Islamic militant Hamas group, said army bulldozers flattened homes, and that dozen of houses had already been destroyed.
By early afternoon, Israeli forces controlled almost the entire camp, the army said. The Israeli military said about 150 men put down their weapons and emerged from the camp early Monday. Abdel Salam said only women, children and the elderly left the camp. The militants were staying put, ready to fight to the death, he said.
In Nablus, the West Bank's largest city, smoke rose from the Old City, a densely populated maze of stone buildings and narrow streets. Army officials said troops controlled about half of the Old City, and that dozens of gunmen surrendered Monday.
In one rubble-covered alley, gunmen were trying to pull a seriously wounded comrade to safety. One of the rescuers was shot in the leg and fell over the wounded man before both were carried away as helicopters fired from machine guns. The incident Sunday was witnessed by Associated Press Television News cameraman Nazeeh Darwazeh, who also saw two bodies lying in the streets, including that of Ahmed Tabouk, a local vigilante feared by many in the Old City.
In Bethlehem, Israeli troops ringing the Church of the Nativity exchanged fire with armed Palestinians holed up in the shrine, built over Jesus' traditional birth grotto. A senior Israeli army officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said two border policemen who were shot and wounded by Palestinians threw a smoke grenade into the compound, sparking a fire.
A Palestinian policeman, who was trying to extinguish the fire, was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper, a fellow policeman in the compound said.
Israeli officials and senior Franciscans in Rome, whose clerics are among those inside, appeared increasingly at odds as the standoff stretched into a seventh day.
Sharon told parliament that soldiers would surround the church until the gunmen release the clerics, whom he described as hostages, and surrender. The Franciscans accused Israel of violating a pledge not to attack the church. Church officials said the clerics were not hostages and would remain in the compound.
The fire burned for about an hour in a second-floor meeting hall above the courtyard of St. Katherine's, a Roman Catholic church adjacent to the Church of the Nativity. The fire destroyed a piano, chairs, altar cloths and ceremonial cups in the meeting hall, clerics said. Israeli troops searched Palestinian firefighters who came to extinguish the blaze. The firefighters were eventually allowed to go to Manger Square and put out the fire by spraying water over the compound's wall.
More than 200 armed Palestinians have been holed up in the church compound for seven days, ringed by Israeli forces. Israeli soldiers have been using loudspeakers to demand that the gunmen surrender, but they have refused to come out. The army has said troops would not storm the church.
A spokesman for the office of the Custodian of Catholic sites in the Holy Land characterized Monday's incident as an Israeli attack. "I've been warning for days now that an attack is imminent and on behalf of my brothers calling on the church and the world to intervene with the Israeli government," the Rev. David Jaeger told APTN in Rome.
In Jerusalem, Sharon told Israel's parliament in a speech frequently interrupted by heckling – mainly from Arab legislators – that the 11-day-old offensive would continue until Palestinian militias have been crushed.
"These missions have not been completed yet, and the army will continue operating as quickly as possible until the mission has been completed, until it has dismantled Arafat's terror infrastructure and until the murderers hiding in different places have been arrested," Sharon said.
After the operation is over, Israeli forces will withdraw to buffer zones in the West Bank, he said, but added that "the places we leave must have a responsible Palestinian leadership that will take over the areas."
Sharon appeared to be suggesting that he would only do business with Palestinians not affiliated with the Palestinian Authority, which he has branded a terrorist entity.
Referring to Sharon, Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said that "the man's endgame all along was to dismantle the Palestinian Authority," and that Israel would not find Palestinians to go along with such a plan.
Erekat said Sharon was defying the United States by refusing to stop the offensive immediately.
In Israel, though, there was a widespread feeling that the Bush Administration was quietly acquiescing to a few more days for the Israeli offensive.
"While (Bush) calls for an Israeli pullout 'without delay' ... his secretary of state travels to the region in a slow, weeklong glide, even though the Americans know only his physical presence might block 'Operation Defensive Shield,'" wrote commentator Chemi Shalev in Maariv.
Powell plans to arrive in Israel and the Palestinian areas later this week, after visiting with leaders in Morocco, Egypt, Spain and Jordan.
Israeli troops and tanks began rumbling into the West Bank on March 29, beginning a massive hunt for weapons, explosives and militants who have terrorized Israel with a series of suicide bombings and other attacks.
More than 1,500 Palestinians have been arrested by Israel since then, including 500 to 600 fugitives, among them 70 to 80 involved in planning attacks on Israelis, Israeli military officials said. Troops have confiscated 2,000 rifles and uncovered 15 labs for making explosives, the officials said.
In his speech to parliament, Sharon also said he was willing to meet with Arab leaders anywhere without preconditions to discuss a Mideast peace proposal. He said a recent pan-Arab call for Israel's withdrawal from all occupied Arab lands in exchange for comprehensive peace, had "positive elements."
But he said Israel cannot accept a return of Palestinian refugees, an issue Arab nations say must be resolved before they establish normal relations with Israel.
Along Israel's northern border, exchanges of fire between Lebanese guerrillas and Israeli forces injured seven Israeli soldiers Sunday, the military said. Additional reservists would be sent to the Lebanese-Israeli border area, the military said.
© 2002 The Associated Press |
