RAMALLAH, West Bank, 15 December — Israeli forces continued their killing spree yesterday by assassinating eight Palestinians, six of them members of the Palestinian security services, and arrested at least 50 activists in raids.
Bombs from F-16 planes hit a complex used by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s elite Force-17 guard unit in Gaza City and shrapnel from the blast struck his nearby guest house, which was empty at the time, witnesses and security officials said. The security building exploded in a red flash of light and sent gray smoke into the night sky as people ran for cover. No deaths were reported in the assault, but hospital sources said 17 people, including women and children, were slightly wounded in the raids.
Israeli tanks remain just 200 meters from Arafat’s offices in Ramallah on the West Bank, where the embattled Palestinian leader — dismissed by Israel as "irrelevant" — has been under virtual house arrest for more than 10 days.
The sweep for activists followed airstrikes on Palestinian security targets Thursday evening in the latest violence that has thrown in jeopardy all efforts to effect a cease-fire. US peace envoy Anthony Zinni met with Jordan’s King Abdallah in a desperate bid to find a way out of the violence that has gripped the region.
In what the army called the largest operation against "wanted men" in Palestinian areas, Israel sent tanks and troops to at least four West Bank towns and villages. Army bulldozers also destroyed 15 houses in Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian security sources said six men were killed in the assault on Salfit in the northern West Bank. An Israeli military spokesman said one of the dead men was on Israel’s wanted list. Palestinian security sources said Israeli infantry backed by tanks and helicopter gunships raided Salfit early yesterday morning.
They identified the wanted man as Riziq Harzallah and said he and the other five killed belonged to different Palestinian security and intelligence services.
Col. Kamal Kaddoumi, commander of Salfit area told Reuters that the seven-hour-long raid took the Palestinian security men by surprise as they were manning a roadblock at the western entrance of the town.
He said the offensive happened "under heavy machine-gun fire from helicopters. There was a light resistance that lasted for just two minutes".
Israeli military sources said Harzallah was shot dead at his home and the others died in a gunbattle. The Palestinian sources said eight Palestinians were wounded.
Troops raided several Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank overnight, arresting some 50 suspects, including about 20 in Salfit. Soldiers who arrived in 20 armored vehicles searched several homes in Asira Al-Shimalia village for suspects and took 13 men away, Palestinians said.
Near Hebron in the southern part of the West Bank, four Palestinians were arrested. Israeli soldiers later shot dead two of them in cold blood while a third escaped to Palestinian-controlled territory.
"These are war crimes committed by Sharon’s government against our people," Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said of the Salfit raid. "Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wants to destroy everything," he said.
In Damascus, the Hamas yesterday vowed to keep up its deadly attacks on Israel. In Beirut, Hezbollah also called yesterday for more attacks on Israel.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres challenged the rejection of Arafat and the military strikes against the Palestinian Authority. "Arafat is not finished despite what Sharon contends," the dovish Peres told Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper in an interview published yesterday. "It is possible the military actions against him will bolster his standing among the Palestinians and in countries in the region and in Europe," said Peres, leader of the center-left Labour Party and a partner in the right-wing Sharon’s coalition.
Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer said Israel will look for someone new to emerge from the Palestinian leadership as a partner for discussions, rather than current Palestinian leader Arafat.
"We will talk with other people. One can assume that people will rise from within the Palestinian leadership who will be willing to discuss the issues dividing us," Ben Eliezer was quoted in Israeli daily Haaretz as saying.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell told a news conference in Washington, "The situation is getting worse, not better, and we really cannot give up hope. We cannot walk away from this. The stakes are too high."
A senior US official said yesterday the United States has told European countries not to invite or host Arafat in an effort to pressure the Palestinian leader to take steps to quell Middle East violence.
But Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel said at a European Union summit in Belgium yesterday Arafat and his Palestinian Authority remain the only parties for Israel to talk to in efforts to end Middle East violence. "We don’t think that weakening the Palestinian Authority or Chairman Arafat can help advance the peace process in any way," he added.
