NABLUS, West Bank, 2 April — Expanding its military offensive against the Palestinians yesterday, Israeli tanks, backed by helicopters, took complete control of the northern West Bank town of Tulkaram as nine Palestinians and an Israeli were killed in new bloodshed and more than 700 people were arrested by the occupation army.
In Ramallah, Israeli forces dug in around Arafat’s headquarters in the city, putting up sandbags, tents and wire fences that turned his remaining building into a virtual detention center.
Late in the evening heavy machine gun fire and the sound of grenades were heard in the center of the town, amid movements of Israeli armored vehicles.
The fifth bombing in six days in Israel left a suspected Palestinian activist dead and an Israeli policeman who flagged down his car seriously wounded in west Jerusalem, police said. Two other people were slightly hurt. Israeli tanks entered the autonomous city of Tulkarm and troops thrust into the Palestinian-ruled towns of Al-Bireh, Qalqilya and Beit Jala and reoccupied them. The sources said sporadic shooting broke out as 10 Israeli tanks made their way to the center of the town, but there were no injuries initially reported.
Israeli military sources indicated that the army was planning to enter all cities in the West Bank on a step-by-step basis to search for activists. A major offensive was expected in the Gaza Strip. Some Israeli Army reservists placed an advertisement in the newspaper Haaretz yesterday saying they will not participate in a new re-occupation of autonomous lands.
In Tel Aviv, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said on national television that Israel should “ease the siege” on Arafat, in a criticism of government strategy. “We must not deceive ourselves. We cannot resolve the problem in one fell swoop, this is very complicated,” he said, adding: “We must ease the siege of Arafat because we have polarized media attention.”
US President George W. Bush yesterday refused to condemn Israeli operations but again defended his approach and urged President Arafat to condemn Palestinian bombings. “There will never be peace so long as there’s terror, and all of us must fight terror,” Bush told reporters. “I’d like to see Chairman Arafat denounce the terrorist activities that are taking place, the constant attacks.” After months of mostly bipartisan praise of his stewardship of the war on terrorism after Sept. 11, Bush has found his Middle East policy increasingly under question. Many Democrats are calling for a new, higher-level diplomatic initiative from the Bush administration to stop the killing and get the parties talking peace again.
In Gaza, Palestinians said soldiers stationed near the southern city of Rafah shot dead an 11-year old boy in the afternoon.
Three Palestinians were killed in the embattled West Bank city of Ramallah. Two were policemen, while the third was an older man, whose body, bearing bullets wounds in the chest and head, was found crumpled between two cars in the downtown area of the city.
Eight Israelis were wounded yesterday afternoon, in a shooting attack near Ramallah, and one was critically injured by a Palestinian sniper in the Ha Homa location adjacent to southern Jerusalem. Israel also arrested nine foreign sympathizers who had succeeded in entering Arafat’s compound, despite the Israeli siege.
About 40 sympathizers, mainly from France and Italy, but including German and other European nationals, were still in the compound, Palestinians said. A further 100 Italian and French nationals managed to slip past Israel’s tight closure of Ramallah and enter the city, to take up positions around the hospitals as “human shields”.
In Berlin, a German Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said the German government urged Israel yesterday not to undertake any action that could harm the pacifists inside Arafat’s office. Fifty civilians including Americans, Canadians, Italians and French attempted to reach the Ramallah hospital to give blood and deliver medical aid.
Mediators from the United Nations, the European Union and Russia failed to arrange a meeting with Arafat, the Russian envoy to the region told Itar-Tass news agency yesterday.
The Russian, EU and UN envoys also failed to make any progress on the issue during talks with US envoy to the Middle East Anthony Zinni, Andrei Vdovin told the Russian news agency. “No consensus has so far been reached on this issue” Vdovin told Itar-Tass. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said yesterday Egypt is involved in “intense” international and inter-Arab contacts to lift the Israeli siege Arafat.
Maher informed Arafat by phone yesterday of “intense efforts made by Egypt and contacts taken with different parties on the international and Arab level, to guarantee his safety and lift the siege,” a Foreign Ministry source said.
Nigerian Foreign Minister Sule Lamido said yesterday the Israeli government is engaging in “terrorism” in its campaign against the Palestinian leadership.
In Tripoli, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi headed a demonstration of tens of thousands of people against Israel yesterday, an AFP journalist witnessed.
In another development, Israeli Army spokesman Brig. Ron Kitri told Israel Army Radio yesterday that the Israeli offensive was for a limited period.
Meanwhile in the town center, Israeli shells slammed into a building where Palestinian fighters were pinned down, security officials said.
In another incident, Palestinian gunmen killed 11 suspected collaborators yesterday.
Two masked gunmen shot dead eight men in an intelligence building in the West Bank town of Tulkarm. A group of gunmen shot dead another at night in Bethlehem and two others were found shot dead in Qalqilya in the West Bank. In the Gaza Strip, hospital officials said an 11-year-old boy died of his wounds after being shot by Israeli troops in the town of Rafah.
