RAMALLAH, West Bank, 6 April — The Israeli Army continued its outrage after US President George W. Bush’s statement left some leeway for Israel to pursue its offensive until Secretary of State Colin Powell visits the region next week.
Israeli attacks killed at least 27 Palestinians, including a top leader yesterday, just days before a new US peace mission by Powell.
Israel reacted coyly to Bush’s call for its troop withdrawal from Palestinian areas noting archly that President Bush did not use the word “immediate.”
“Bush definitely asked for a withdrawal, but he did not say ‘immediate’ withdrawal,” said high-ranking Israeli official Gideon Meir.
Meir said Israeli tanks and troops would “withdraw after having cleaned up the nest of terrorists,” hidden within the five West Bank self-rule towns occupied in a campaign of arrests that began March 29.
“The army will continue its operation until Powell arrives in Israel,” Mark Heller of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies told AFP.
But, Israeli Army Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz said the army needed to stay for at least four more weeks in the reoccupied Palestinian cities to complete its mission, Israel Radio reported.
Israeli helicopter gunships unleashed a hail of missiles on a building in the West Bank village of Tubas, killing six members of Hamas.
Kais Idwan, said by the Israelis to have masterminded the attack on the Jewish Passover holiday that killed 26 people, was among the dead.
Later, an Israeli helicopter fired several missiles near a house in the Askar refugee camp next to Nablus killing three more Palestinians.
In the Gaza Strip, Palestinians said a leader from an offshoot of Arafat’s Fatah movement killed himself yesterday by setting off an explosion in the middle of a group of soldiers. A 14-year-old Palestinian girl and a man were reported killed in Tubas during earlier fighting, while heavy battles around Nablus left 14 Palestinians dead, according to Palestinian officials.
Witnesses also said three Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel were shot dead in Tubas after being removed from a prison by Palestinian gunmen during an Israeli tank incursion in the village north of Nablus. The bodies of seven Palestinians who were suspected of collaboration with Israel were found 300 meters from Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, Palestinian security sources said.
Israeli troops occupying the West Bank city of Ramallah destroyed several private Palestinian radio and television stations mostly devoted to entertainment programs, Palestinians said yesterday.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was quoted as saying the operation would continue and dismissed remarks by a Bush spokesman that he would welcome peace talks before any cease-fire is achieved.
Bush hinted in an interview that Arafat’s time as a political force was winding down.
“My worry is that Yasser Arafat can’t perform,” he told ITV television. “He has let his people down, and there are others in the region who can lead.”
Elsewhere, explosions and gunfire were heard coming from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where Palestinian gunmen holed up for a third day ignored calls from the Israeli Army besieging the compound to come out.
Four priests inside were evacuated for medical emergencies but otherwise the standoff continued.
Hundreds of people were reportedly arrested in the Bethlehem area, including a senior Palestinian intelligence officer.
Some 20,000 Lebanese and Palestinians took to the streets across Lebanon yesterday to show support for the Palestinians. In the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza Strip, some 25,000 Palestinians held protest in a “day of anger” against the continued Israeli military offensive in the West Bank.
Palestinian sources said two men were also killed in fighting in Jenin, including one seriously wounded when a helicopter pounded a mosque and who died after being left bleeding in the street.
The Israeli Army said an Israeli soldier was also killed in Jenin fighting.
Witnesses said Israeli helicopter gunships also fired on Hebron, wounding 11, according to hospital sources.
There have been fears of a second front in the conflict after several cross-border attacks from Lebanon in the past few days.
Israeli air and ground forces hit southern Lebanon yesterday, wounding two civilians, after Hezbollah fighters attacked Israeli Army posts in the disputed Shebaa Farms border area, police said.
Major humanitarian agencies accused Israel of causing deaths by preventing aid workers reaching Palestinians in the West Bank in need of food and medical assistance.
Hundreds of Palestinians were arrested in Bethlehem over the past three days, Palestinian security sources said yesterday adding the prisoners were interrogated by Israeli intelligence personnel.
Israel yesterday ignored offers by church representatives to mediate in the escalating crisis between Palestinians and Israelis, the World Council of Churches (WCC) said.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said yesterday it was possible for Israel to be secure with Yasser Arafat as the leader of the Palestinians.
“I believe that Chairman Arafat knows that Israel has got to be recognized in its existence,” he told NBC in a taped interview from London.
Head of the Hamas Sheikh Yassin rejected yesterday US peace moves in the Middle East, saying neither the “resistance” nor Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat would yield. Sheikh Yassin said: “They want to make us end the resistance and hoist the white flag, to maintain the occupation of our land.”
