JENIN (West Bank), March 1: The Israeli army pushed into a second West Bank refugee camp on Friday and fought gunmen in what it called an attempt to smash terror, as a poll showed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s popularity at a new low.
Palestinian officials said at least six Palestinians had been killed, among them a nine-year-old girl they said had been hit by fire from an Israeli helicopter, and 38 wounded in the assault on Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank.
At least 19 Palestinian police, gunmen and civilians and one Israeli soldier have been killed since the operation began on Thursday with a thrust into Balata camp near the city of Nablus.
As hospitals in the area appealed for blood donors, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat urged international action to halt what he described as a massacre.
“I call upon the whole world to act quickly before a state of chaos engulfs the whole Middle East region,” Arafat told reporters in Ramallah in the West Bank.
Aides to the Palestinian leader accuse Israel of mounting the raids to sabotage a Saudi land-for-peace initiative that is gaining international momentum.
In the Gaza Strip, gunfire from soldiers guarding the Jewish settlement of Dugit killed a seven-year-old boy, Mahmoud al-Talalqa, in the nearby bedouin village of Beit Lahiya, according to Palestinian witnesses and medical officials.
A military spokeswoman said the army was investigating the incident and denied a claim by a neighbour of the boy who said he saw a soldier beckon the child towards his tank, which then opened fire.
Hours after the boy’s death, Israeli police said two Qassam-2 rockets fired from the Gaza Strip had landed in open ground inside Israel, causing no damage or injuries.
The West Bank operation began with an Israeli assault on Thursday on the outskirts of Jenin and on Balata, a bastion of gunmen linked to Arafat’s Fatah faction.
Palestinian police and hospital officials said Israeli soldiers had killed 13 Palestinians in Thursday’s attacks. An Israeli soldier was also killed.
SHARON UNDER FIRE: Pressure has been growing from the political right and left in Israel for Sharon to do more to end the Palestinian revolt against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that erupted in September 2000 after peace talks stalled.
An opinion poll in the Maariv newspaper showed that for the first time since Sharon’s election a year ago a majority of Israelis, 53 per cent, was dissatisfied with his performance.
“He has not kept his promises, met expectations or delivered the goods,” commentator Chemi Shalev wrote in Maariv.
The poll was conducted this week before the West Bank raids.
The violence threatened the peace initiative pursued by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah as a way to halt bloodshed that has killed at least 914 Palestinians and 280 Israelis.
The proposal offers Israel normalized relations with the Arab world in return for a full withdrawal from lands it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel has long rejected a complete pullback to pre-1967 lines, citing security concerns.
France, in some of the toughest foreign criticism of the raids, called them “acts of war.” “We warn the Israeli government against the risk that these actions carry,” a French foreign ministry spokesman said.—Reuters
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