RAMALLAH, March 29: Israel launched an allout drive against the Palestinian leadership on Friday, smashing into Yasser Arafat’s West Bank base, killing seven Palestinians, arresting more than 70 and triggering a new wave of violence after a massive suicide bombing.

A Palestinian official said in an interview with Al Jazeera TV that Israeli paratroopers had tried to storm their way into the offices of Yasser Arafat, who stood at the ready with his gun.

Dozens of Israeli tanks, troops and helicopters took control of the city of Ramallah in an early morning sweep through the West Bank.

Heavy clashes erupted, leaving six dead and 29 wounded, as the Israelis moved on Arafat’s headquarters and raked his office with machinegun and tank fire in a declared attempt to “isolate” him.

Israeli troops arrested more than 70 Palestinians in Arafat’s compound, according to General Yitzhak Eytan, the Israeli commander on the West Bank.

Israeli state radio quoted Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as saying Friday’s push was the start of an offensive to end Palestinian attacks that will last “at least weeks” and feature operations “on a large scale without precedent”.

Aides said the embattled Arafat remained in his office, giving interviews and telephoning world leaders for support, as around 60 tanks closed in and Israeli troops stormed some of the buildings in his compound.

Earlier in the day, an 18-year-old Palestinian woman killed herself and two Israelis in a supermarket in occupied Al Quds. Twenty-eight people were wounded, two seriously, in the attack claimed by the Al-Aqsa Brigades, an armed offshoot of Arafat’s Fatah.

Israeli police stormed the Al Aqsa mosque complex after alleging that youths had thrown rocks at worshippers at the Wailing Wall below. One policeman was slightly injured and five Muslims hurt.

Sharon’s government said it was calling up 20,000 reservists after the new escalation of the conflict.

“The government has decided to consider Arafat, who is the head of a terrorist coalition, as an enemy, who at this stage must be isolated,” Sharon said at a news conference on Friday after an all-night cabinet meeting.

Looking visibly exhausted and wrought, Sharon said Israel would take “all the necessary measures to act and destroy the infrastructure of every terror element that exists”.

Arafat, who had tried to head off the assault with a last-ditch appeal for an unconditional ceasefire on Thursday, said he was under tank and missile attack but remained defiant.

“They want me to become a prisoner or fugitive, or dead,” he said in an interview with the Al Jazeera television network. “But I tell them no, (I’ll be) a martyr, a martyr, a martyr.”

Killings continued elsewhere, too. Four Jewish settlers were shot on the West Bank and two Israelis knifed in the Gaza before the Israeli incursion. Two Palestinians were reported killed during this time.

Palestinian security sources said Ramallah, an autonomous city, was under Israeli control but heavy fighting broke out and machinegun fire echoed through the streets while Israeli helicopters patrolled above.

At least 60 Israeli tanks moved against Arafat’s compound, with a bulldozer smashing through the main gate, the security sources said.

Tanks fired on the headquarters and Palestinian officials said Israeli soldiers occupied two buildings that housed security guards and intelligence services but had not gone into Arafat’s offices.

The pre-dawn operation left five Palestinians dead, and 25 others wounded, including troops, members of Arafat’s personal guard and civilians, hospital sources said.

An Israeli officer was reported killed and four Israeli soldiers wounded.

Israeli forces were back in Ramallah after occupying it for three days earlier this month in their biggest operation in Palestinian territory since 1967. They pulled out on March 14 as US envoy Anthony Zinni began his peace mission.

Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer told reporters that Israel had “no interest in reconquering or reoccupying the Palestinian territories”.

He said the Israelis were not seeking to deport Arafat, who has been bottled up in Ramallah for four months, or make war on the Palestinian people, but were intent on eradicating “the infrastructure of terrorism”.

But Nabil Abu Rudeina, a top aide to Arafat, said in Ramallah that Sharon’s move amounted to “a clear declaration of war against the Palestinian people. .. This is is a very dangerous decision”.

The incursion drew expressions of outrage and calls for international help from Arab states, with the Organization of the Islamic Conference urging the United Nations to schedule an emergency Security Council meeting.

Palestinian factions pledged to unite against the offensive while more muted criticism came from officials in Europe, Russia, Turkey and elsewhere.

But the United States, Israel’s main patron, had little comment beyond a State Department spokesman saying that they were weighing “appropriate responses” to the Israeli move.

There was no direct word from Zinni, who has been trying for two weeks to broker an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire. But a US official said the envoy had no plans to quit and had scheduled separate meetings with both sides.

The new violence also poured more cold water on a major initiative adopted on Thursday at the Arab summit in Beirut to offer Israel normal ties in return for a withdrawal from lands seized in the 1967 war.—AFP