Ramallah Erupts After a Long Lull

Violence spread Wednesday from the volatile Gaza Strip to the West Bank, where Israeli troops shot and killed four Palestinians in this usually placid city after a riot broke out during an Israeli arrest raid.

The fighting in Ramallah, the Palestinians’ administrative and commercial capital, was the most intense in the city since the Israelis launched a massive military incursion into the West Bank four years ago, when they laid siege to the late Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat’s compound. Forays by Israeli troops into the city center now are rare, particularly in daylight.

As bullets whizzed over the main Manara Square and an adjacent shopping mall, Palestinians dropped their bags and scrambled for cover. The acrid scent of tear gas hung in the air.

For Palestinians already anxious about lawlessness and infighting in Gaza, the spread of violence into Ramallah represents a further erosion of security in daily life. Unlike Gaza, which is a deeply impoverished and devoutly religious stronghold of militants, Ramallah is a secular and cosmopolitan city. It is home to a large middle class, including many intellectuals and Palestinians who hold U.S. citizenship.

Israel’s army said undercover troops had entered the city to arrest Mohammed Shoubaki, who is believed to be a financier for the militant group Islamic Jihad. Israeli arrests of militant figures are common, but they almost always take place late at night or before dawn to avoid sparking a confrontation with residents.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, addressing a joint session of Congress in Washington, thanked President Bush for his support of Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and portions of the West Bank.

Olmert said the next step in his plan to redraw the borders of the West Bank -- removing some Jewish settlers while absorbing large settlements into Israel -- “is even more vital to our future and to the prospect of finally bringing peace to the Middle East.”

Witnesses in Ramallah said the trouble began when youths spotted the troops, who were in plainclothes and driving a battered car with Palestinian plates.

After the Israelis entered a building in search of Shoubaki, the youths surrounded the structure, disabled the undercover squad’s vehicle and began throwing stones. In response, regular army units were sent in.

The melee, which began as a hail of bricks and concrete, quickly escalated into gunfire, at an hour when the city center was crowded with people leaving work and school.

Shopkeepers hurriedly pulled down the heavy metal grates on their storefronts when the shooting began. An army spokeswoman, Capt. Noa Meir, said soldiers at first used tear gas and rubber-coated bullets to contain the crowd but switched to live ammunition after gunmen mixed in with the stone-throwers began firing on them.

The Israeli raid, in which Shoubaki was taken into custody, drew a sharp response from senior aides to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose headquarters is only a short distance from the scene of the fighting.

“Israel is determined to stage provocations in a manner that will take us back to a cycle of violence,” said Nabil abu Rudaineh, an Abbas advisor.

At the same time, factional strife intensified Wednesday in Gaza, where an officer in a key security force loyal to Abbas was killed in an explosion that ripped through his car. Hours earlier, three Hamas militants were grabbed by gunmen lying in wait outside a mosque. All three were shot, and one died of his wounds.

The mood is angry these days in most Palestinian cities and towns, where tens of thousands of government workers have gone unpaid for more than two months. More than a third of the Palestinian population is sustained by those salaries.

After the confrontation in Ramallah, streets in the city center were littered with bricks and rocks that youths had hurled at Israeli army jeeps, a scene reminiscent of those from the height of the Palestinian uprising, or intifada.

The four Palestinians who were slain were believed to have been armed and taking part in the riot, the Israeli military said. Hospital officials said more than a dozen of the 30 or more injured were passersby.

Weeping family members hurried to the nearest hospital, where the wounded were laid out on the floor for lack of space. “I would have tied you up at home if I had known what you were doing!” a woman shouted at her son, a young stone-thrower who had been shot in the foot.

It was unclear why the army chose this time and place to arrest Shoubaki, who is based in the northern West Bank town of Kalkilya. He is suspected of funneling money to Islamic Jihad, which has carried out eight suicide bombings in Israel over the last 18 months.

Wednesday marked the first time in more than a year that Israeli troops had entered Ramallah in such large numbers at a time of day when many civilians would be out in public. Early Tuesday, Israeli forces staged a raid in the city that resulted in the arrest of Ibrahim Hamed, a Hamas leader accused of masterminding attacks that led to dozens of Israeli deaths. But the operation was on the outskirts of the city and was carried out before dawn. The troops were gone before most people were awake.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the explosion that killed Nabil Hodhoud, a captain in the Preventive Security Service force, as his car was traveling in Gaza City. A bodyguard was badly wounded.

Hodhoud’s security branch has been at the center of a deadly feud between forces loyal to Abbas’ Fatah movement and those with allegiance to the Hamas-dominated government. Hamas last week sent a new police force into the streets, which engaged in a shootout Monday with Fatah-allied police.

Hamas, a militant group that took power in March after winning Palestinian parliamentary elections, and Fatah, its defeated foe, have been locked in escalating reprisal attacks over the last two weeks. Two Fatah security chiefs were the target of would-be killers last week; one was gravely injured.

Hamas blamed gunmen from the Preventive Security Service for abducting and shooting three members of its armed wing earlier Wednesday in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis. The three, bundled into a car by armed men as they emerged from morning prayers, were found a short time later lying by the roadside, one of them fatally wounded.

In a sign of the tangled loyalties in Gaza, yet another militia took to the streets Wednesday: a force of about 1,000 men who pledged fealty to a onetime Fatah chieftain, but also to Hamas.

The men, wearing black T-shirts and scarves knotted on their heads pirate-style, marched in formation through Gaza City.

Their commander, Khaled abu Hilal, now serves as a spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, and Fatah has disowned him.

In Washington, Olmert said Israel was counting on American help to sell his plan for redrawing the West Bank borders.

“Success will only be possible with America as an active participant, leading the support of Europe and across the world,” Olmert said.

Israel is expected to ask the Bush administration to help pay for the so-called convergence plan, offer political support for the redrawn boundaries and help persuade other countries to accept the undertaking. On Tuesday, Bush gave a preliminary nod to the plan, though he said he still had to study the details.

As he did Tuesday, Olmert said he would try to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority, but would move ahead unilaterally if it balked.

Times staff writer King reported from Jerusalem and special correspondent Abukhater from Ramallah. Staff writer Paul Richter in Washington and special correspondent Fayed abu Shammaleh in Gaza City contributed to this report.