Five days into its siege of Yasser Arafat's West Bank headquarters, Israel for the first time gave an indication of its plans for the Palestinian leader: exile. But Palestinian officials and US Secretary of State Colin Powell rejected the proposal, floated Tuesday by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who said Arafat could have a "one-way ticket" out of Ramallah.
In a tour of West Bank army bases Tuesday, Sharon said he was asked by European Union envoy Miguel Moratinos whether Arafat would be able to leave Ramallah.
"I told him, if they (European diplomats) would like, they will fly with a helicopter and will take him from here," Sharon said in remarks carried by Israel Radio.
"First, I would have to bring this to the Cabinet. Second, he can't take anyone with him, the murderers who are located around him there, and the third thing is that it would have to be a one-way ticket," Sharon said.
"He will not be able to return."
The Israeli daily Haaretz said Foreign Minister Shimon Peres discussed possible arrangements for Arafat's exile with Egyptian officials who rejected the plan, while the Jerusalem Post reported that Morocco had offered asylum.
TOO OLD TO RULE?
The offer was rejected by Palestinian officials. Arafat "will not leave Palestine - this is the final return," said Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian planning minister.
Peres told NBC's "Today" show there would be no Israeli attempt to force Arafat from his power bases in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "We are not going to exile him against his will," Peres said.
Powell, also speaking on "Today," said Arafat's exile would not help. "He is seen as the leader of the Palestinian people," Powell said.
He also advised Sharon to "take care" in his offensive and said eventually a political solution would have to be found.
Meantime, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said it was time for both Sharon and Arafat to move aside.
"These two people are both more than 75 years old and have lived this conflict for a very long time - too long if you ask me," Solana told Spain's Cadena SER radio. "It wouldn't be bad if they step down in favor of other people."
'OPERATION PROTECTIVE WALL'
Israel on Tuesday widened its 5-day-old military offensive, Operation Protective Wall, launched to hunt down militants blamed for a string of terror attacks on Israelis.
Nonetheless, a Palestinian man blew himself up Tuesday night when security forces stopped him at a checkpoint in Baka al-Sharkiyeh, a Palestinian village along the line between Israel and the West Bank.
It was the seventh such attack in as many days. The man killed himself, but injured no one else.
In other violence Tuesday, nine Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed. By nightfall, most of the 400 Palestinians trapped in the compound of West Bank security chief Jibril Rajoub surrendered to Israeli troops in a deal brokered by US and European officials.
About eight men remained inside. Israel had assaulted the compound, saying top militants were inside, a claim denied by Rajoub.
¡°Sharon's main objective is to finish off the Palestinian Authority, President Arafat and the security services to abort the establishment of a Palestinian state," Rajoub told Reuters.
HOLY SITE
Religious sites were not immune to the fighting. As night fell Tuesday, dozens of armed Palestinians were holed up inside the the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, which is built over the grotto where Christian faithful believe Jesus was born.
About 20 of the gunmen were wounded and being tended to by nuns, said witnesses trapped inside the church compound.
The armed men, some of them Palestinian policemen, forced their way into the church after running battles with Israeli troops firing from helicopter gunships and from tank-mounted machine guns.
At nightfall, the bodies of four dead gunmen lay sprawled just off Manger Square, where the church is located.
Israeli forces have entered biblical Bethlehem several times in the past 18 months of fighting, but in the past kept a distance from the Church of the Nativity, one of Christianity's holiest shrines.
Elsewhere in Bethlehem, an armored personnel carrier fired several rounds at the Star Hotel, where about two dozen journalists covering the incursions are based, said Iyad Moghrabi, a cameraman on assignment for Associated Press Television News. Moghrabi said a cameraman for the Arab satellite TV station Al Jazeera was lightly injured in the head by shrapnel.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the fighting near Manger Square and the shooting on the Star Hotel.
700 SUSPECTS
Early Tuesday, Israeli tanks rolled into the West Bank towns of Tulkarem and Bethlehem. Israeli forces already control the towns of Ramallah and Qalqiliya.
At Ramallah Hospital, with more than two dozen bodies piling up and decomposing at the morgue whose power supply was cut, Palestinians buried 17 of their dead in an adjacent parking lot. It was a gesture driven by grim practical necessity, but also intended as a powerful protest against hardships suffered by ordinary people.
A 56-year-old Palestinian woman who had a cast removed from her leg was shot and wounded, apparently by an Israeli sniper, as she left the hospital, said Dr. Hosni Atari. Soldiers prevented medics from treating her and she died, Atari said.
On Tuesday afternoon, Israeli troops briefly lifted a curfew. Crowds trailed out the doors of shops, lugging big tins of cooking oil and bags of pita bread.
OPERATION TO LAST FOR 'WEEKS'
Powell, in his "Today" show interview, said Israeli officials had given the Bush administration a guidelines on the length of the Israeli operation. "There is no intention of permanently occupying any of these cities and villages," Powell said. "We're expecting that it will take [the Israeli forces] a couple of weeks."
However, Sharon has said the campaign was open-ended.
Two Israelis died Tuesday of wounds from last week's suicide bombing at a Passover banquet, an attack that dramatically increased pressure on Sharon to take action. The death brought the bombing's total toll to 24 and made it the deadliest Palestinian attack in 18 months of fighting.
In a reflection of the growing danger, two US officials said the State Department is set to trim the US diplomatic presence in Jerusalem.
American diplomats and other US workers at the consulate whose jobs are not considered essential will be offered free transportation home, along with all dependents, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The United States, declining to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, maintains its embassy in Tel Aviv. The authorized departure, as it is called, does not apply to the embassy, the officials said.
ROCKET ATTACK FROM LEBANON
Meanwhile, Israeli security reported that a Katyusha rocket was fired into Israel for the first time in nearly two years, raising concerns that militant Lebanese Hizballah guerrillas may be trying to open a second front in response to Israel's crackdown in the Palestinian areas.
The army said at least one 107mm Katyusha rocket struck Israel's Upper Galilee region in northern Israel early Tuesday. The rocket, fired from Lebanon, was found in an open field, said the army, which did not say who fired it. No injuries were reported.
It was the first reported Katyusha strike by Hizballah guerrillas on Israeli territory since the Israeli army withdrew from Lebanon in May 2000, ending a 22-year-long occupation.
Hizballah launched anti-tank rockets and grenades Saturday at Israeli military positions along the border. Israeli warplanes hit Hizballah targets in retaliation.
Israel has accused Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon, of giving Hizballah the "green light" to start attacking Israel.
(China Daily April 3, 2002 )
