RAFAH, Jan 11: Israeli tanks and bulldozers tore up the runway of the Palestinian-controlled international airport in the Gaza Strip on Friday in retaliation for a Palestinian raid that killed four Israeli soldiers.

The army also said it cut off a main road in southern Gaza and that special forces arrested eight Palestinians wanted for arms smuggling in Rafah, a town on Gaza’s border with Egypt, and detained a Hamas guerilla and two gunmen in the West Bank.

The latest developments, including an announcement by the Islamic Jihad that it would no longer adhere to its halt in attacks on Israelis, threatened to wreck US efforts to end more than 15 months of bloodshed.

“This new aggression (by Israel) will lead to an explosion, more violence and tension,” Nabil Abu Rdainah, senior aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, told Voice of Palestine radio.

Just hours after the airport incursion, Israeli troops wounded a Palestinian man near the tomb of the patriarchs, a site holy to both Muslims and Jews, in the divided West Bank city of Al Khalil, Palestinian hospital sources said.

Israeli military sources confirmed the incident and said the 45-year-old man had been shot while trying to wrest away the rifle of a soldier guarding a Jewish settlement in the city.

Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner said the army carried out the latest arrests because Arafat had not done enough to rein in guerillas “and regretfully we are doing the job that the Palestinian Authority is supposed to do”.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told supporters on Thursday evening he would not resume contacts with the Palestinians until they arrested people involved in a weapons shipment Israel seized in the Red Sea last week.

But Sharon — who accuses Arafat of ordering the shipment, a charge the Palestinian leader denies — said Israeli-Palestinian “security cooperation” would not be affected by the decision.

Tanks and bulldozers entered the Gaza airport, a key symbol of Palestinian aspirations to statehood, following a raid by Hamas men on Wednesday that killed four soldiers at an army post just across the border with Israel.

The airport was undergoing renovations after tanks and bulldozers ripped up the runway on Dec 4 in retaliation for suicide bombings. With slabs of tarmac piled on top of each other, it looked on Friday as if an earthquake had hit it.

Fayez Zaidan, head of the Palestinian Civil Aviation Authority, estimated the cost of repairs at three million dollars.

Abu Rdainah said Washington must intervene immediately to stop what he called brutal Israeli crimes that could undermine US diplomacy aimed at putting a truce-to-talks plan in motion.

The Palestinian Authority demanded an immediate meeting of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations to discuss “this dangerous situation”.

Abu Rdainah dismissed Sharon’s freezing of contacts with the Authority, saying relations with Israel had ceased since US Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni left the region on Sunday.

On Thursday, Israeli forces demolished dozens of homes in a Gaza refugee camp, saying gunmen used them as firing positions.

The Palestinians had been bracing for Israeli reprisals since Israel seized a ship laden with munitions on Jan 3 that it said was bound for Palestinian areas on Arafat’s orders.

Arafat and the Palestinian Authority have rejected allegations linking it to the arms shipment, although US officials said there was compelling evidence against high-ranking Palestinian officials.

“Except for security issues, there will be no direct contact with the Palestinians...until (Arafat) arrests them,” Sharon said in his speech, referring to the officials as well as gunmen who killed an Israeli cabinet minister in October.

“Until arrests are made, Arafat will remain jailed in Ramallah and will not leave,” he said, referring to an Israeli military blockade that has confined the Palestinian leader to the West Bank city. Sharon said the barricade could last years.—Reuters