Israel Boosts Strikes Against Palestinians

Israeli combat helicopters fired missiles into a police building 100 feet from Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s headquarters Tuesday while he was inside, amid an escalating military offensive launched across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Arafat wasn’t injured in the strike in Ramallah but abruptly moved to an underground bunker. The Israeli army said it wasn’t trying to hit Arafat, but the strike was heavy in symbolic significance, in effect hitting the Palestinian leader where he lives.

Elsewhere, Israel expanded its newly declared “war on terror,” launched in the wake of an especially devastating trio of Palestinian suicide bombings that killed 28 people in 12 hours over the weekend.

Early today, another suicide bomber struck in central Jerusalem. Officials said his explosives apparently detonated early, killing him and injuring three Israelis near the David Citadel hotel, formerly the Hilton.

Tuesday’s strikes were wide in geographical scope, with warplanes and helicopters bombarding at least eight targets in five cities and towns.

In Gaza City, F-16 fighter jets reduced a police headquarters to rubble, killing a policeman and a 15-year-old boy from a neighboring school, Palestinian residents said. Palestinian hospitals said that more than 100 people were injured, 20 seriously, and that they included numerous schoolchildren who were rushing home after the raid started. Most of the children were hurt when they fell down as they fled.

The government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon formally declared Arafat’s Palestinian Authority a “terror-supporting entity” earlier Tuesday, and Sharon vowed to fight what Israel regards as Arafat-sponsored terrorism “with all means at its disposal.”

Israel accuses Arafat of failing to rein in Islamic militants who kill and maim Israelis.

In every case in 24 hours of raids, Israeli forces attacked potent symbols of Arafat’s power or Palestinian nationalism: police headquarters, his personal aircraft, his airport.

At the compound that houses Arafat’s main West Bank offices in Ramallah, two Israeli Cobra helicopters arrived about 11 a.m. and then hovered in the leaden sky for a couple of minutes. Guards at the compound spotted the aircraft, a shout went up, and men started pouring out of the buildings.

Then, in quick succession, the helicopters fired two missiles into a police station at one corner of the compound. A third missile hit some distance away. Passersby and police ran as fast as they could.

Once the helicopters disappeared, wailing ambulances and soldiers in black ski masks flooded the scene to inspect the damage and hunt for casualties. There were none. The one-story stone police station was left with a huge, jagged hole in its side. Hanging on the wall was a tattered sign reading: “Police. For emergencies dial 1-0-0.”

Arafat Takes Shelter in Underground Bunker

Arafat was meeting with aides at his headquarters about 100 feet away when the helicopters approached. Accompanied by bodyguards, he took shelter in an underground bunker, according to aides.

A spokesman, Information Minister Yasser Abed-Rabbo, said Arafat took the attack in stride.

“After all,” Abed-Rabbo said, “he endured three months of Israeli shelling in Beirut.”

When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, Arafat, then based in Beirut, the capital, was repeatedly targeted by Israeli forces--led then, as now, by Sharon. The two aging warriors have always been bitter enemies.

Speaking near his compound a couple of hours after Tuesday’s attack, Arafat accused Sharon of sabotaging the Palestinian leader’s tentative efforts at cracking down on Palestinian terrorism.

“Before this aggression started, we had succeeded. . . . Many had been arrested,” Arafat told CNN. “He is escalating his military activities against our people, against our towns, against our cities, against our establishments.”

At least 110 militants have been arrested by Palestinian authorities since the weekend bombings, according to both sides, but Israel considers them small fry.

Outside Arafat’s compound a few minutes after the airstrikes, the commander of Arafat’s Fatah movement in the West Bank, Marwan Barghouti, who Israeli newspapers say is on Israel’s hit list, held forth in a sidewalk news conference.

“Israel will never achieve security for its people by bombing our people,” said Barghouti, who has recently become critical of Arafat but Tuesday was among those closing ranks, publicly at least, behind him.

In Gaza City, warplanes flattened facilities of the Preventive Security Service, one of more than a dozen security forces working for Arafat. Smoke, dust, debris and shrapnel flew into the streets of the congested residential area. Hundreds of children and police officers fled in panic.

At Shifa Hospital, 17-year-old Ahed Nasrallah was recovering from shrapnel wounds to his legs and hands.

“I saw the F-16. It was close,” the student said from his hospital bed. “It hit the police post, and all the boys tried to run away. Then another rocket hit and I fell down, and next thing I woke up in the hospital.”

Also hit Tuesday were the offices of Force 17, Arafat’s special guard unit, which Israel has named a terrorist organization. And Israeli tanks again entered Palestinian territory.

Israel has embarked on what Sharon describes as an unbridled fight for the country’s survival. But the government’s reliance solely on military might seems to rule out any chance for diplomacy in the foreseeable future--even though a special U.S. envoy remains in the region.

The military campaign was triggered by some of the deadliest Palestinian suicide bombings in years.

Palestinian officials argue that they had begun arrests of militants and will now be hard pressed to continue. They charge that Sharon’s offensive is destroying the very security forces and infrastructure that must round up and hold suspects. Plus, the Israeli military actions make it even more politically untenable for Arafat to arrest suspects wanted by Israel.

“How can Israel expect us to take measures to arrest people while they are targeting our police centers?” Abed-Rabbo said. “This is not a war against Hamas and terrorism. This is a war against the Palestinian Authority, a war to undermine President Arafat.”

Hamas, Islamic Jihad Are Not Attacked

Israeli army spokesman Brig. Gen. Ron Kitrey said Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets weren’t attacked, because those militant groups have a “secret military structure” that is difficult to hit. Besides, he said, the message is for the Palestinian Authority.

“The purpose was to send a clear military message. . . . ‘Friends, we’ve had enough, take the responsibility that you have and stop the terrorism,’ ” he said.

Meanwhile, the decision by Sharon’s Cabinet to expand and accelerate military strikes on the Palestinians has placed serious strains on the coalition government. Sharon’s main coalition partner, the center-left Labor Party, is considering quitting and will meet today.

Few analysts think Labor will leave the government, at least in the near future. But the dispute reflects the uneasiness with Sharon’s policies felt by some politicians.

“The prime minister and the radical right believe that after they bring Arafat and the Palestinian Authority to their knees, they will succeed in achieving an arrangement with other Palestinians, on Israel’s terms,” said Shlomo Ben-Ami, a former Labor foreign minister. “And this is the terrible mistake.”