Hebron | Monday
THE Israeli army early on Monday seized the city of Hebron, killing eight Palestinians as it pressed a West Bank sweep for militants hours after a dramatic deal to free Yasser Arafat from a month-long siege.
Twenty Palestinians were wounded as Israeli troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships rolled into the West Bank’s most populous city, one of two major localities previously spared in the Israeli offensive, Palestinian security sources said.
The Israeli army said it arrested 17 Palestinians in the operation, which was completed by dawn after fierce fighting, particularly around one besieged building. Sporadic gunfire was heard for hours afterward.
A curfew was declared and streets of the city of 120 000 people were deserted except for Israeli tanks deployed at strategic points after the invasion, launched despite insistent US demands that Israel halt its military drive.
The operation came just hours after Israeli and Palestinian officials announced agreement on a US plan to lift the siege at Palestinian leader Arafat’s base in Ramallah by placing wanted militants holed up inside in US or British custody.
The deal was hailed as a potential breakthrough in efforts to ease tensions and restart negotiations to end the 19-month-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has claimed more than 2 000 lives.
The Israelis moved into Hebron two days after four Jewish settlers, including a young girl, were killed by Palestinian gunmen who went on a house-to-house shooting spree in a community near Hebron in the southern West Bank.
Dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles accompanied by commando units rumbled into Hebron from several directions and were followed by infantry, more armor and helicopter gunships, the Palestinian sources said.
An Israeli army representative said in a statement that the operation would be ”limited in time” and was ”not aimed at the Palestinian Authority but only at the terrorist infrastructure in this town.”
Among the dead was Rajai Abu Shami, an activist of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the main armed group linked to Arafat’s Fatah movement, Palestinian sources said. They said the others were policemen or civilians.
Israeli soldiers supported by tanks had made a first incursion early Thursday into the Palestinian-controlled part of Hebron to carry out searches and arrests.
Under an accord with the Palestinian Authority, Israel evacuated 80% of Hebron in 1997 but it still controls an enclave where there are some 400 extremist Jewish settlers under army protection in the middle of the Palestinians.
The occupation of Hebron leaves Jericho to the northeast as the only major community in the West Bank spared invasion in the Israeli push launched on March 29 to root out Palestinian militants. – Sapa-AfP