Palestinian Fighters Set Sights on Symbol of Israeli Power

The face of today’s Palestinian revolt is this: Maged al Masri, dressed in black Tommy Hilfiger jeans, two cellular phones in his pockets, a silver pistol at his hip and an M-16 slung across his back.

It is also this: Maged al Masri, 27, born in a refugee camp, five-year veteran of Israeli prisons and a seasoned agent in Yasser Arafat’s security forces.

As top militia commander in the West Bank city of Nablus, Masri is leading forces loyal to Arafat, the Palestinian Authority president, in a daily and nightly siege on a tiny Jewish enclave surrounding Joseph’s Tomb, purported burial place of the biblical patriarch.

“We are going to destroy it at any price,” he said.

On Thursday, Masri was reluctantly pondering a tentative cease-fire that Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak ordered. Masri’s men--the armed wing of Arafat’s Fatah political movement--are the fighters whose actions have helped escalate the current unrest to a level of organization and coordination not previously seen in Palestinian uprisings.

With one shot in the air, Masri boasts, he can rally 2,000 men with guns from the cramped, miserable Balata refugee camp where he lives. It skirts Nablus and has long been a hotbed of Palestinian resistance to Israeli and, on occasion, even Arafat’s rule.

Most of the fighters are graduates of the intifada, the six-year Palestinian uprising against Israeli military occupation that ended in 1993 with the advent of the Oslo peace process. But today they are better armed, thanks in large part to their membership in Fatah or in official security forces.

In a week of skirmishing, the main target for Masri and his men has been Joseph’s Tomb, a concrete bunker that sits along a Nablus street and is guarded by half a dozen to 20 Israeli soldiers. A fortified Israeli military base overlooks the site from nearby Jezeen Hill.

Joseph’s Tomb, which the Palestinians label a Zionist outpost, has become a major thorn in their side. On Thursday, it was a forlorn spectacle, surrounded by tangled barbed wire, feeble metal sheets and the remains of burned tires. One side of the concrete wall was charred black, smoke hung in the air, and nervous Palestinian police officers jumped when Masri approached.

“We attack, they see our guns and they stay away,” Masri said of the officers.

Masri’s forces have repeatedly tried to storm the site, and Israelis have fought them back, firing from helicopter gunships and a sniper position on the hill. Next to Joseph’s Tomb sits a Palestinian school, covered with bullet holes that Masri said came from Israeli fire.

Many Nablus Palestinians--and some Jews as well--do not believe Joseph’s Tomb is really a sacred site, despite an Oslo agreement to leave it in Israeli hands. They believe that Joseph, the biblical figure who was sold into slavery by his brothers, was buried in Egypt. But more than that, the Palestinians in Nablus complain that Israel has converted the compound into a military post that has no place in their town.

Inside, a small group of Jews opened a yeshiva, or religious school, several years ago. The army detachment is there to protect them. The yeshiva students were evacuated last week at the first sign of trouble.

Masri’s attacks on Joseph’s Tomb may be having an impact: Israeli army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz is reported to have proposed to Barak that the site be evacuated, having concluded that guarding it is no longer worth the risk to Israeli lives.

One of the few Israelis killed in the current unrest died at Joseph’s Tomb. Sgt. Maj. Madhet Yosef, of the paramilitary border police, was shot inside the compound and then languished for hours while Israeli officers attempted to negotiate with the Palestinians to have him evacuated. He eventually bled to death.

Yosef was a Druze, an Islamic sect, many of whose members have chosen to live as Israeli citizens. Unlike other Israeli Arabs, the Druze serve in the army. His family has accused the military of letting him die because he was not a Jew, a charge the army rejects.

Joseph’s Tomb was also the site of a bloody battle in 1996 when violence spread to Nablus after the Israeli government opened a tunnel near the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. At least six Israeli soldiers were killed, some trapped in their burning armored personnel carriers after being attacked by Palestinian gunmen cheered on by a crowd of 1,000.

Masri and his cohorts have concluded that the “liberation of Palestine” will only come as the result of a combination of negotiations and armed struggle. If Arafat orders them to lay down their weapons, they will stop shooting--but that will be temporary.

“What Arafat decides will be the natural outcome of what we are doing on the battleground,” said Hussam Khader, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council who represents Nablus.