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RAMALLAH, March 12: The Palestinian leadership on Tuesday urged refugees in a camp in Ramallah to resist Israeli occupation troops who seized the city on Monday in the biggest single operation in 17 months of violence.
It was the first call by the Palestinian Authority to its citizens to resist Israeli forces in two weeks of raids on Palestinian refugee camps. Hundreds of Palestinian men have been rounded up in the raids.
Witnesses said some 150 Israeli tanks entered Ramallah, the West Bank’s commercial and political centre, as well as the al-Am’ari camp and the nearby town of el-Bireh.
After tanks stormed the camp, home to more than 8,000 refugees, the military called on all males aged between 15 and 45 to gather in al-Am’ari’s public square.
Instead, witnesses told Reuters, women and children took to the streets in defiance while the men stayed indoors.
The Palestinian leadership headed by President Yasser Arafat urged the men not to surrender but to fight back.
“The leadership calls on the residents of the brave al-Am’ari refugee camp not to respond to the calls of the occupation troops to gather in some public places and to remain steadfast and to resist occupation,” an official spokesman of the Palestinian Authority told Reuters.
In similar raids earlier this week in the northern West Bank cities of Tulkarm and Qalqilya, the Authority had ordered its policemen to surrender.
Television footage then showed hundreds of men gathered in squares in refugee camps blindfolded, their hands tied.
HOUSE-TO-HOUSE SEARCHES: Inside Ramallah on Tuesday Palestinian security forces and gunmen fought Israeli soldiers in tanks and armoured cars. Troops conducted house-to-house searches in el-Bireh and in parts of Ramallah. There were unconfirmed reports of arrests.
Israeli troops killed four Palestinians and wounded at least seven in gunbattles, Palestinian officials and hospital sources said. Two Israeli soldiers were also wounded. Hospital sources said soldiers shot at ambulances trying to reach the wounded, and fired twice at the city hospital itself.
The army described the capture of Ramallah as a “methodical sweep” for militants and said it was under orders to keep a distance from Arafat’s headquarters. By dawn, tanks were 20 metres from the compound, Palestinian witnesses said.
Palestinian officials said Arafat was in his Ramallah office receiving reports of Israeli attacks in the West Bank and Gaza.
At least 25 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, Palestinian hospital officials and witnesses said.
Israeli troops have concentrated recent raids on refugee camps which they claim are hotbeds of Palestinian militancy.
WATER PIPES DESTROYED: Witnesses in the al-Am’ari camp said Israeli forces had destroyed the house of Wafa’ Idrees, the Palestinian woman who blew herself up in a busy Jerusalem street in January, killing an elderly Israeli man.
They said Israeli armoured bulldozers had dug a trench in the main Ramallah-Jerusalem road, destroying Ramallah’s main water supply pipes. Water flooded the streets for hours. F-16 warplanes flew overhead and Apache helicopter missiles struck offices of Arafat’s Fatah faction in el-Bireh and other targets.
US Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni is due to return to the region this week to try to enforce a truce in more than 17 months of fighting that has escalated to the brink of war after by far the bloodiest fortnight of the conflict.
Asked if Arafat had contacted Washington following the Ramallah raid, Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo replied: “What for? The US was informed by Israel before it took place and it’s waiting for Israel to reoccupy the entire West Bank and Gaza before they send Zinni.”—Reuters
