The latest Israeli siege of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s West Bank base went into its second day on Tuesday with the number of suspected Palestinian militants arrested climbing to 31, the army
said.
Scores of Israeli tanks and armored vehicles rolled into the town of Ramallah early on Monday in their largest incursion in weeks and encircled Arafat’s headquarters for the second time in four days.
Israeli bulldozers used rubble and car wrecks to seal off the compound already battered by a short but ferocious tank atack on Thursday and a five-week siege that ended on May 2.
An Israeli army representative said that nine more Palestinians suspected of involvement in terrorist activities had been arrested, bringing the total from the latest operation to 31.
Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer said on Monday that among those arrested was the Ramallah head of the radical Palestinian group Islamic Jihad which claimed last Wednesday’s bus bombing that killed 17 Israelis.
Israeli state radio said the Israeli troops were looking particularly for Mahmud Naif, who they say is a member of an armed wing of Arafat’s Fatah movement.
The army said it had found two booby-trapped cars containing 60 kilograms of explosives destined for attacks on Israel, as well as five Kalashnikov assault rifles and false Israeli papers.
Tanks continued to surround Arafat’s headquarters ”to prevent terrorists from trying to take refuge there to escape arrest,” the army representative said.
Ben Eliezer said on Monday the operation would last ”a day or two” and added that the Israelis had no intention of entering the compound.
Meanwhile, an Israeli army unit withdrew at dawn from the Daheisheh refugee camp near the West Bank town of Bethlehem where it had launched a limited operation overnight.
”It was a patrol sent out in search of wanted Palestinians which withdrew without taking any prisoners,” the representative said.
He said that two Palestinians were arrested in the southern West Bank city of Hebron. Separately, Palestinian security officials said the bodies of two men suspected of collaborating with Israel were found in Hebron.
Palestinian officials also said two Palestinians were wounded by Israeli gunfire in the town of Khan Yunes in the southern Gaza Strip. – Sapa-AFP