AN enraged Yasser Arafat emerged early Thursday morning from Israel’s month-long siege of his headquarters, lashing out at Israel over a gunfight and fire at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity.
As Israeli forces completed their pull-out, the Palestinian leader did not spare a moment to relish his freedom, bought under a US deal that saw six Palestinian militants imprisoned in Jericho under international guard.
Rather a trembling and pale Arafat yelled about the dangerous standoff in Bethlehem between the Israeli army and the 200 Palestinians trapped inside the Church of the Nativity.
”It is unacceptable,” shouted Arafat, thumping his index finger against a table as he spoke about the late night gun battle and raging fire by Bethlehem’s Christian shrine.
”It is unacceptable for the Palestinians, for the Arabs, for the Muslims, for the Christians, for the United Nations, for the United States and for Russia,” Arafat roared.
He accused Israeli soldiers of being ”terrorists, Nazis and racists.” Israeli troops finished their withdrawal in Ramallah shortly after midnight, bringing to a close an episode that started with a suicide bombing in northern Israel at the end of March.
That kamikaze attack, which left 28 dead, prompted Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to send tanks into Arafat’s compound on March 29 and to vow to isolate his old nemesis.
But instead of marginalising Arafat, the siege helped fuel the Palestinian leader’s rebirth as a popular hero.
Once again, Palestinians saw the keffiyeh-clad Arafat as a fighter, battling against the odds for the dream of a Palestinian state.
His new-found stature was in evidence as more than 1 000 people celebrated outside his compound early Thursday. The jubilant crowd flashed victory signs and brandished rifles.
On winning his freedom, Arafat said he would tour the West Bank to ”shake hands with my people who have suffered (from) crimes” of the Israeli army.
He also seized on controversy over the Jenin refugee camp, comparing the nine-day campaign there to the devastating World War II battle of Stalingrad that obliterated the former Soviet city and killed more than 600 000 people.
”Jenin has turned into Jeningrad, instead of Stalingrad. Remember something like that, Stalingrad? Now, Jeningrad,” Arafat told CNN.
Meanwhile the United Nations struggled to come to terms with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s decision to disband his fact-finding panel into Jenin after Israel refused to cooperate with the mission, citing fears the UN team was biased.
Syria, the one Arab member of the Security Council, insisted on pushing a toughly worded draft resolution demanding Israel’s full cooperation, but Washington countered with its own, less critical proposal. But Israelis said they did not believe the matter would end there in the United Nations.
”We must expect that the Security Council, under pressure from the Arab countries, will be called upon to decide on a commission of inquiry,” said Israel’s UN Ambassador Yehuda Lancry.
As Israeli forces pulled away from Arafat’s compound, Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer declared the West Bank military sweep over and called for ”immediate” political talks with the Palestinians.
But Sharon put the brakes on any momentum, warning he could not protect Arafat from exile if the Palestinian leader decided to travel abroad.
”We’re not asked to give any guarantees, we’re not going to give any guarantees, because usually in the past when he left, it was always a sign for a wave of terror,” Sharon told ABC, television’s ”Nightline”.
The Israeli withdrawal had started on Wednesday evening minutes after six Palestinians wanted by the Israelis were taken to a prison in the West Bank town of Jericho where they were put under US and British supervision.
The six were brought out one by one and piled into separate US bulletproof four-by-four vehicles for the half-hour drive to Jericho where they were greeted by a cheering crowd of some 200 locals.
The transfer capped a day of intense negotiations that appeared to focus on housing arrangements for the four men convicted in last October’s murder of the Israeli tourism minister and two other militants yet to face any charges.
The deal struck under heavy pressure from US President George Bush was seen as potentially key towards easing tensions, rolling back Israel’s military offensive and reviving talks to end 19 months of bloodshed.
In Bethlehem, where Israel remains caught in a standoff with 200 Palestinians, including some 30 militants, holed up in the Church of the Nativity, heavy shooting broke out late on Wednesday and parts of the compound caught fire.
The two sides exchanged angry accusations of starting both the fighting and fires.
A Palestinian source inside the church said by telephone that some sections of the compound had caught fire from the assault.
”The Israelis tried to storm the church,” the Palestinian official said. But the blazes were out by 2:00 am (2300 GMT) and the shooting also died down.
Israeli government and army officials firmly denied attacking the church and accused the Palestinians themselves of setting off the blazes.
”It was the Palestinians who ignited the fire in the church and this is not the first time they have done this,” said army representative Lieutenant Colonel Olivier Rafowicz.
”Prior to the blazes, they started shooting Kalashnikovs at our soldiers,” he said.
Israeli troops and tanks also staged an incursion early on Thursday into the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem. The army immediately introduced a curfew in the town, which fell under full Israeli control, witnesses said.
They reported heavy shooting as the tanks rumbled in, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or arrests.
Meanwhile, a senior Vatican envoy, French Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, one of Pope John Paul II’s closest aides, arrived in Jerusalem hoping to breath new life into the stalled Bethlehem talks.
The prelate was to see Sharon and Arafat ”to try to find a solution to end the siege,” said Father Raed Abu Sahlia, secretary of the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem.
The Bethlehem negotiations have stumbled over Israel’s refusal to accept a Palestinian plan to evacuate all the gunmen to the Gaza Strip and the Palestinians’ rejection of an Israeli offer of either exile or trial in Israel.
Separately, an explosion went off in the gardens of the British Council in Gaza City late on Wednesday, but no casualties and only minor damage were reported.
The blast came just hours after British security experts, together with US colleagues, transferred the six wanted Palestinians to the jail in Jericho. – Sapa-AFP