Palestinians in Gaza Arrest 60 Militants

In a showdown with powerful Muslim fundamentalists, the Palestinian police Tuesday arrested more than 60 members of the militant Islamic Jihad in connection with a weekend attack on an Israeli army patrol in which one Israeli soldier was killed and two were wounded.

In daylong raids throughout the Gaza Strip, special internal security units pulled the men from their homes, from cafes and stores, and from several mosques that serve as their bases, Palestinian officials said. The sweep was the biggest the Palestinian police have carried out. For Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat, who ordered the arrests, the roundup was an assertion of his authority, a demonstration of his power and willingness to use it. It also was a warning to the militants, members of leftist as well as Islamic groups, that he will not tolerate further anti-Israeli attacks lest they jeopardize the extension of Palestinian self-rule to the occupied West Bank.

Faced with stern Israeli warnings that the Palestinian Authority had to act, Arafat had little choice, according to Palestinian observers, for not only expansion of Palestinian self-government but Palestinian autonomy itself was at stake.

Yossi Beilin, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, praised the action as an important step toward fulfilling Palestinian obligations under the autonomy agreement with Israel and perhaps, in doing so, constituting a turning point in the Middle East peace process.

Yet the real test will come when Palestinian officials decide whether to prosecute those arrested. In the past two months, Palestinian police have arrested a number of Islamic militants but released virtually all without charge. None has been turned over to Israel.

Among those arrested Tuesday were Sheik Abdullah Shami, 39, the most prominent Islamic Jihad leader in Gaza, and Taher Mohammed Lulu, 32, the group’s principal ideologist. All the Islamic Jihad members were described as having been jailed in the past by Israeli military authorities. More arrests are expected today.

Palestinian police also arrested about 10 members of the radical Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, whose members fired on an Israeli settler’s car here last week.

Islamic Jihad had declared that its militia carried out the Sunday night ambush of an Israeli patrol guarding Morag, a Jewish settlement of about 70 people in the southern Gaza Strip.

The group, which vehemently opposes the peace agreement between Israel and the PLO, declared that the Palestinian leadership “knows perfectly this (roundup) of some symbols and supporters of Islamic Jihad will not make the movement change its clear strategy to struggle against and to tear out criminal Zionist roots from our beloved (Gaza) Strip.”

Arafat, who has sought to win over the Islamic militants to the peace accord without open conflict, had denounced the continuing attacks.

“You know we are against it,” Arafat said Monday. “We are in search of these people who are trying to act against the security of the whole area. . . . They are getting their orders from outside Palestine, from far away.”

Brig. Gen. Ghazi Jabali of the police said that a man arrested earlier had also been linked to the killing and would be prosecuted. Israeli sources said a Palestinian injured in the shootout had led police to some of the Islamic Jihad members.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin warned Arafat this week that the continuing attacks were endangering the peace agreement.

“The absence of firm and effective action by the Palestinian Authority to halt the terror of the extremists opposed to the peace process will create problems on Israel’s part in continuing the agreement,” Rabin said following Sunday’s attack. Although such attacks have been less numerous than anticipated by Israeli security specialists when the agreement was signed, Rabin said the militants were “nearing the limit” of what Israel could tolerate.

“They are not making any effort to deal with these terror groups,” he told Israel Television on Tuesday. “In the future, if this continues, it raises a big question about the ability to continue with the implementation of the Declaration of Principles signed in Washington.”

Rabin was referring to the accord on Palestinian autonomy, signed at the White House on Sept. 13, 1993, that set a timetable for self-government.

Rabin complained that the Palestinian police have done nothing to track down two Muslim fundamentalists suspected of killing two Israeli construction workers near Tel Aviv last month. Israel has given the Palestinian police the names of the two suspects.

Seven Israelis have been killed and 12 injured in attacks in the Gaza Strip since the Palestinian Authority assumed control in May.