ISRAEL - Hits Jenin with overnight raid

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BBC Tuesday, 14 August, 2001, 00:11 GMT 01:11 UK Israel hits Jenin with overnight raid

This is the first Israeli incursion since the uprising began

As many as 70 Israeli tanks have carried out an lightening raid on the West Bank town of Jenin early on Tuesday morning.

Moving in the Palestinian-controlled town for three hours, they destroyed local police buildings and seized the governor's office.

Four Palestinian security officers were reported injured in gun battles with Israeli soldiers, but earlier reports of deaths remain unconfirmed.

Palestinians have been bracing themselves for Israeli reprisals for recent bomb attacks, and there is speculation that Jenin is being targeted because several suicide bombers have come from the town.

Last Thursday's suicide bomb in Jerusalem killed 15 people, and a second suicide bomber struck at a Haifa cafe on Sunday - both bombers came from near Jenin.

Witnesses said that Israeli helicopters were flying above the town, and that Palestinian gunmen opened fire at the tanks.

This is the first time since the present intifada or uprising began 10 months ago that Israeli forces have entered a Palestinian-controlled town.

Jenin was handed over to Palestinian control in 1995, under the interim peace accord agreed at the Oslo peace talks.

In the wake of the incursion, the Palestinian Authority demanded that the UN Security Council meet immediately to provide international protection for the Palestinians.

Commenting on events in Jenin, a senior Palestinian official, Saeb Erekat told the BBC's World Today programme that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon "had opened hell's gate tonight.

"The endgame of Mr Sharon is to make sure that he closes every possible door for peace".

Strike protest

Palestinians on Monday staged a general strike in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to protest against Israel's seizure of Orient House, their unofficial headquarters in mainly Arab East Jerusalem.

Most Palestinian shops and businesses were closed, while Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli police again scuffled outside Orient House itself.

Ten protesters were arrested, as they struggled to raise Palestinian flags.

Leading Palestinian politician Hanan Ashwari said that the demonstrations would continue.

"There will be mass protests, demonstrations and all types of activity until Israel gets the message," she said.

Israeli split

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan demanded an immediate ceasefire and called for an end to the occupation of Orient House.

His appeal was echoed by US President George Bush, who said his administration was striving "to convince the parties". But he added that "the people in the area must make the conscious decision to stop terrorism".

The Israel Government has declared that Orient House will never be handed back.

But doves in the Israeli cabinet, led by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, believe that the hawks led by Mr Sharon may have committed a blunder by seizing the building.

Amid the protests, peace efforts were continuing, with Mr Peres being authorised to make contact with Palestinian representatives, but only to discuss a ceasefire and not for political negotiations.

Mr Peres denied that he had been ordered by Mr Sharon not to speak to the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

"I have the right to meet every person I think I have to, including Chairman Arafat," said Mr Peres.

Meanwhile the political chief of Hamas said that suicide bombs were the only way to bargain with Israel.

Such attacks "force Ariel Sharon to accept Foreign Minister Shimon Peres negotiating with the Palestinians," said Khaled Meshaal.

-- Anonymous, August 13, 2001

Answers

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/226/world/Israeli_tanks_enter_Palestin ia:.shtml

Israeli tanks enter Palestinian city for first time, destroy police headquarters

By Ibrahim Hazboun, Associated Press, 8/14/2001 06:15

JENIN, West Bank (AP) Israeli tanks leveled the main police station in Jenin on Tuesday in the biggest Israeli military incursion into a Palestinian-controlled city since the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994.

Israeli tanks have entered Palestinian areas on multiple occasions during the past 10 months of fighting. But in those forays, they moved only short distances in relatively open areas, and did not venture into built-up cities.

The army said the move was in response to repeated suicide bombings that Palestinian militants have launched from Jenin, in the northern West Bank.

''Jenin has become a city of bombers,'' said Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, army chief of staff. He accused Palestinian security forces of cooperating with radical Islamic groups, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have carried out the attacks.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called the raid part of a campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ''to undermine the peace process and undermine the Palestinian Authority.''

Erekat said the Palestinian representatives were in touch with the U.N. Security Council to appeal for international forces to protect the Palestinians.

About 10 tanks rolled into the city at about 1:30 a.m. from an Israeli base just outside of Jenin. They destroyed a small police checkpoint building on the edge of the city on their way to several key Palestinian buildings on or near the city's main square.

In the city center, the tanks fired only on the police headquarters, a complex of three buildings, about 200 yards from the square, and bulldozers finished off the destruction of the buildings, said Haider Irshad, vice governor of Jenin.

Tanks also moved in front of the governor's office and the general headquarters for the security services, but did not fire, he added.

Palestinian gunmen shot at the Israelis, but the Israeli troops did not leave their tanks during the operation, and no Israeli ground troops were seen in the city, Irshad said. Two Palestinians were lightly wounded by shrapnel, he said.

The two-story police buildings were reduced to rubble and hundreds of Palestinians arrived Tuesday morning to look at the destruction. One young man raised a Palestinian flag atop the piles of shattered concrete.

''The Palestinian people are committed to continuing the uprising, and Israel must be punished,'' said Jalal Jalad, a leader of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement in Jenin.

Israel said the Palestinian Authority, led by Arafat, was not taking steps to stop the bombings against Israel.

In the most recent attack, a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up at a restaurant near the northern port of Haifa on Sunday, killing himself and injuring 20 Israelis.

In more violence Tuesday, a 19-year-old Palestinian, Shadi Affori, was killed in an explosion at his home, and a second Palestinian man was wounded by the blast in the West Bank town of Jenin. The Fatah movement confirmed that Affori was one of its members, but there was no immediate word on what caused the explosion.

Also, an Israeli woman was moderately wounded and her 2-year-old daughter was lightly wounded when Palestinian gunmen fired on their car near the West Bank city of Hebron, the army and hospital officials said.

Palestinian gunmen and Israeli troops exchanged gunfire across a valley separating the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo and the Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Jalla, Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said. One Israeli was lightly wounded by flying glass, he said.

Israel's raid into Jenin came a day after Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said he would resume contact with senior Palestinian officials to try to negotiate a new truce.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Peres denied media reports that Sharon had told him not to speak to Arafat.

''I have the right to meet every person I think I have to, including Chairman Arafat,'' Peres said.

-- Anonymous, August 14, 2001


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