April 16, 2002	Tuesday	Safar 2, 1423

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RAMALLAH, April 15: Israel arrested one of its most wanted men — West Bank Fatah leader Marwan Barghuti — on Monday as violence and incursions pushed up the death toll across the Palestinian territories.

Israeli forces seized Barghuti in this West Bank town as he was heading for a meeting with his bodyguard Ahmed Barghuti, another relative, his brother Hisham said.

He said Israel, which has been scouring the West Bank for Barghuti — a leading member of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement and tipped as a possible successor — since it invaded Ramallah on March 29, had probably intercepted the phone call with his bodyguard.

Israel had attacked the Palestinian preventive security headquarters south of Ramallah at the start of the invasion, believing he was being sheltered there.

It then invaded his home village of Kobar in search of the 42-year-old, who has been one of the most active proponents of the intifada.

Israel accuses him of organizing a series of deadly suicide bombings and shootings against Israelis by fighters linked to Fatah, notably the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

Israeli public radio said Barghuti was arrested by a squad which had surrounded the house where he was living.

A number of shots were fired, which injured no one, it added.

The arrest came after a day of scattered violence across the Palestinian territories which left four Palestinians dead near Bethlehem.

Rana Saadi al Karaji, a 24-year-old Palestinian lawyer, was shot dead as Israeli troops evacuated a building as part of their sweep through the West Bank.

Three policemen gave themselves up, as well as the head of Arafat’s Bethlehem offices, Palestinian officials said.

And in Labdia, a self-rule village east of Bethlehem, Mohammed Abu Maharib, 29, was shot dead in his car as Israeli soldiers carried out house-to-house searches, witnesses said.

Bethlehem standoff: A Roman Catholic monk trapped inside Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity with a group which includes Palestinians said on Monday he lived in fear that the two-week standoff with Israeli forces could end violently.

Father Severy Lubecki, a Polish Franciscan monk, also said he felt forgotten in the church where the group of about 100 Palestinians and more than 40 monks and nuns have been surrounded by Israeli troops.—Reuters