GAZA, 22 February — Fresh Israeli blitz against Palestinian security targets in the West Bank and Gaza Strip yesterday killed nine Palestinians. The surge in violence has left international peace efforts in tatters and prompted talk of all-out war.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, whose country holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, called the situation “practically (one) of war” and said it would be hard for the EU to put forward any peace initiative in the current climate.
A missile narrowly missed President Yasser Arafat’s office in the West Bank for the second successive night and, in a symbolic blow, the army destroyed the Voice of Palestinian radio-television headquarters in the Gaza Strip. Ground troops entered Gaza City for the first time in 17 months of ongoing violence.
Palestinian doctors in Gaza said six people were killed and about 40 others were wounded in the Israeli raids which began shortly after midnight.
In a second wave, helicopters fired missiles at buildings used by military intelligence and the elite Force-17 guard in Rafah in southern Gaza, and struck a Force-17 heaquarters in Ramallah and police offices in Nablus in the West Bank.
The attacks were part of a stepped-up response by Israel’s government, which ordered more raids. Israeli forces in tanks and armored personnel carriers blew up the Voice of Palestine headquarters near Gaza City, knocking out radio and television transmissions.
Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian activist who attacked a checkpoint in the West Bank. An Arab Israeli was killed in the attack near Baqa Al-Sharqiya and two soldiers were wounded. The fate of a second activist involved in the raid was not immediately known. Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian civilian trying to cross a checkpoint, witnesses said.
Palestinian witnesses said 27-year-old Walid Al-Sheikh was shot trying to cross the Qalandiya checkpoint near the West Bank city of Ramallah. Hospital sources confirmed his death.
Israeli soldiers shot dead another Palestinian man in the center of the West Bank town of Hebron.
Arafat, meanwhile, reiterated his call for Palestinians to cease fire in their nearly 17-month-old uprising. “We reiterate before all of you one more time the initiative that I launched on Dec. 16 to make the cease-fire hold, and also to pursue the peace process...” Arafat told a news conference after he met religious leaders.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in his televised national address yesterday that his government had decided to establish “buffer zones” to protect Israelis from Palestinian attackers and would continue to work to prevent “total war”.
Sharon vowed to continue to meet Palestinian figures in the quest for peace but would continue to fight “terrorists with all our strength”. Underscoring the momentum of the violence, tens of thousands of Palestinians marched in funerals in at least three towns in the Gaza Strip, many calling for revenge.
A senior Palestinian official said yesterday that Palestinian police had arrested three men suspected of involvement in the assassination last October of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi.
Israel has made the arrest of Zeevi’s killers a condition for ending Arafat’s confinement to his Ramallah offices.
A spokesman for Sharon said Israel would only lift its siege on Arafat once it received proofs the arrests were serious and the assassins were brought to justice.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) slammed the arrest of the two men accused of shooting Zeevi, plus a member of the group’s central committee.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told Sharon in a phone call that Israel and the Palestinians must cease to engage in acts of “mutual vengeance”.
