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WITH THE WORLD'S EYES DIVERTED
. . . Meanwhile, Jews continue
Israel steps
upWest Bank raids with tanks and bulldozers JERICHO, Occupied Palestine (AP)—Israeli tanks and bulldozers rolled into Jenin and Jericho in the West Bank early today, hours after raiding other West Bank sites. Palestinian security officials said 10 Palestinians, including an 11-year-old girl, were killed during the incursions. The troops entered Jenin on the northern edge of the West Bank around 2 a.m. for the second time in 24 hours, witnesses said. Trading gunfire with residents, the Israelis destroyed the rest of a police compound they attacked a day before, and then withdrew. Palestinians said shelling and machine-gun fire killed three people, a man and woman in a house and [an armed militant]. Nine other people were wounded during the Jenin incursion, they said. Israeli forces entered Jericho around the same time. Palestinian security officials said 22 Israeli tanks and three bulldozers entered from two sides. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on either operation, but officials have said that Jenin was a center of [militant resistance to Israeli occupation]. The purpose of the Jericho raid wasn't immediately clear, but the presence of the bulldozers indicated that they intended to tear down Palestinian structures, as they have in previous incursions into Palestinian-controlled areas. The raids came hours after Secretary of State Colin Powell said he had talked by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, urging them to hold a high-level meeting to stop a nearly yearlong conflict and start on peacemaking. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat drew a connection between the incursion and the attacks in New York and Washington on Tuesday that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon. "The Israelis are using the tragedy of the events in New York and Washington, feeling that the attention of the world is elsewhere," he said. "There was nothing to provoke this." In Israel's incursions Wednesday, tanks moved into Jenin, Tamoun and Arrabeh, Palestinian security officials said. |
