Israeli tanks were surrounding Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s office building in the West Bank town of Ramallah on Friday after a suicide bomber blew up a bus in downtown Tel Aviv, killing five other people and wounding dozens.
Meanwhile in Gaza City, two Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire early on Friday during a brief incursion.
The Israeli military issued a statement saying that it was stepping up its activities all over the West Bank, and at Arafat’s headquarters, the forces were ”isolating the area which is providing refuge to about 20 wanted persons bent on terrorism.”
An Israeli Cabinet statement after a rare emergency session late on Thursday put the blame for the bombing on Arafat, ”who established the coalition of terror.” It said operational decisions were made, but did not elaborate.
Palestinian officials said the United States had stepped in, urging them to hand over 19 men on Israel’s wanted list. Also, US officials suggested that the Palestinians appoint representatives to negotiate with the Israelis about defusing the situation, the Palestinian officials said. US officials were not available for comment.
Soldiers with loudspeakers called on wanted Palestinians inside Arafat’s compound to surrender, naming Tawfik Tirawi, commander of Palestinian intelligence, an Israeli official said.
Israel TV reported that a huge bulldozer knocked down some trailers where Palestinian security officers were stationed inside the city-block-sized compound.
Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh said Arafat was in the office building and unharmed. ”Arafat is fine, but the situation in the compound is very dangerous,” Abu Rdeneh said, charging that Israel was targeting Arafat personally. Abu Rdeneh called for international intervention to stop the Israeli operation.
There were no official claims of responsibility for the Tel Aviv bombing, but Israeli media said they received claims from both of the violent Islamic groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
In Gaza City early on Friday, Israeli forces entered a mixed industrial-residential neighborhood and blew up three metal workshops, witnesses said. Two Palestinians, a 25-year-old woman and a 35-year-old man, were killed by gunfire, doctors said. Nearby houses were damaged by the explosions. Israeli tanks were withdrawing from the area before daybreak, residents said.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment. In the past, the Israelis have destroyed workshops where they said weapons were made.
Late on Thursday, Palestinians set off a bomb next to an Israeli army vehicle, wounding two soldiers, the military and witnesses said. Palestinians said Israeli forces destroyed a Palestinian police post and dug up farmland east of Gaza City.
Also, 12 people were wounded when Israeli tanks opened fire near the town of Rafah on the Egyptian border, and tanks approached a southern neighborhood in Gaza City, residents said. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
Responding to the Tel Aviv bombing, the Palestinian Authority, headed by Arafat, issued a statement condemning attacks against all civilians, Israeli and Palestinian, and charging that such a strike in Israel ”gives Sharon’s government and his occupation army the pretext to continue killing.”
But Palestinian Cabinet Minister Ghassan Khatib said Sharon had provoked the attacks because Israeli forces had taken control of main West Bank population centers, putting towns and cities under curfew. ”Civilians are paying the price for the policy of Sharon,” he said. ”The Israeli government has to stop its strategy of using force to achieve its objectives.”
Israel has kept Ramallah under almost constant siege since last December, and Arafat has rarely left the town, spending most of his time in the office building deep inside the compound. Several times tanks have crashed through the outside walls, destroying buildings inside.
In April, Israeli tanks encircled Arafat’s office building, holding him a virtual captive inside for almost six weeks.
The Israeli military said the tanks moved into the compound in response to the terror attack on Thursday in Tel Aviv. A suicide bomber set off a nail-studded explosive device near the front of a Number 4 bus, killing five other people, including the driver. The vehicle lurched forward out of control for about 50 meters after the blast, the driver slumped over the wheel. Passengers jumped out of shattered windows.
”People were yelling, ‘take us out of here’,” said a witness, Herzl Ben-Moshe, who rushed to the bus to help rescue passengers. It was the second suicide bombing in as many days, the first such attacks since August 4. Since violence erupted on September 28, 2000, more than 250 Israelis have been killed in more than 70 suicide bomb attacks.
Before the Cabinet session, the Israeli military reimposed curfews in the five Palestinian cities and towns it controls in the northern part of the West Bank.
Israel took over most of the Palestinian towns in the West Bank in mid-June after back-to-back suicide bombings in Jerusalem killed 26 people.
Israeli Foreign Ministry official Gideon Ben-Meir charged that the Palestinians were taking advantage of easing of curfews to send suicide bombers into Israel, blaming the Palestinian Authority for allowing militants to ”hold the Palestinian people hostage.”
In all, 1 868 people have died on the Palestinian side and 617 on the Israeli side since violence erupted. – Sapa-AP