Israel Severs Ties to Arafat After Bus Ambush Kills 10

Israel cut contacts with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat early today and said it will launch widespread operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to hunt down and disarm militants after Palestinian gunmen killed 10 Israelis in a bus ambush Wednesday night outside a Jewish settlement.

Meeting in Tel Aviv, the eight-member Security Cabinet held Arafat directly responsible for the bus attack outside Emmanuel, the northern West Bank settlement. In a statement, the ministers said that Arafat “is no longer relevant to Israel and Israel will no longer have any connection with him.”

The decision to launch further operations in the Palestinian-controlled areas came after F-16s already had bombed Palestinian security offices in the West Bank and Gaza--including buildings in Arafat’s presidential compound in Gaza City--in retaliation. F-16s later fired missiles into Arafat’s headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, shortly after the Palestinian leader left the site.

“As far as someone to deal with, he does not exist,” Danny Ayalon, diplomatic advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said of Arafat in a telephone interview. “He is the source of all the problems.”

The government action was triggered by apparently coordinated attacks: double suicide bombings in Gaza launched about the same time that gunmen carried out one of the deadliest Palestinian assaults near a Jewish settlement in more than 14 months of bloodshed.

A bus carrying 45 people from the Israeli coastal plain was only a few hundred yards from the front gate of Emmanuel about 6 p.m. when the Palestinian gunmen detonated two roadside charges, then sprayed the vehicle and cars traveling behind it with bullets and lobbed grenades, an army spokesman said.

Rescue workers and Israeli army forces that arrived at the scene found themselves pinned down by gunfire, and ambulance drivers said they were at first unable to reach or evacuate the 25 wounded people. An Israeli army spokesman later said a 14-year-old boy, a border patrolman and an army reservist were among the dead.

The militant Islamic organization Hamas claimed responsibility for the bus assault and the suicide bombings.

The attacks and retaliation came a day after U.S. envoy Anthony C. Zinni asked both sides to hold their fire for 48 hours as he works to secure an end to bloodletting that has claimed about 1,000 lives. The clashes threatened to destroy his efforts.

In a statement condemning the attacks, Zinni warned that Arafat and the Palestinian Authority “must move immediately to arrest those responsible for these attacks and to destroy the infrastructure of the terror organizations that support them. Coexistence with these organizations or acquiescence in their activities is simply not acceptable. Palestinians must act against these groups and they must act now.”

Before the Israeli security Cabinet met, Arafat issued a late-night order that all offices and institutions of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another militant organization, be closed in the West Bank and Gaza. His office issued a statement condemning the attacks on the Jewish settlers and renewing the Palestinian Authority’s plea for the United Nations Security Council to dispatch international observers to secure a cease-fire.

Arafat has been under escalating pressure from the Bush administration and the European Union to rein in militants and, in the process, avoid an all-out assault on his regime by Israel. After Islamic militants carried out a series of deadly suicide bombings inside Israel earlier this month, the Israeli government declared the Palestinian Authority a “terror-supporting entity.”

Israeli officials held Arafat responsible for Wednesday’s attacks, despite Hamas’ claim of responsibility.

“We must take . . . continuous action against the Palestinian Authority, even at the price of its collapse,” said Danny Naveh, a minister without portfolio in the Israeli Cabinet. Infrastructure Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned that he would lead his National Union Party out of the government unless Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dismantles the Palestinian Authority.

Briefing reporters after the Cabinet meeting, Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit said Israel had reached a moment of truth in its battle against terrorism.

“We have been talking with the Palestinians at all levels for two years,” Sheetrit said. “Now it is time for Israel to defend itself.”

Israel Radio reported that troops and tanks had moved into Palestinian-controlled areas in Ramallah and the Gaza Strip this morning, searching for gunmen.

The Israeli army said the attacks in the West Bank and Gaza appeared to have been coordinated. In Gaza, the two Palestinian suicide bombers blew themselves up in the Gush Katif bloc of Jewish settlements, detonating explosives strapped to their bodies as they hurled themselves on the hoods of cars driven by Israelis. Three Israelis were reportedly injured in the bombings.

The sequence of events in the West Bank unfolded outside the ultra-Orthodox settlement of Emmanuel, about five miles southwest of Nablus, after gunmen struck at 6 p.m. Police and army spokesmen said as many as three Palestinian gunmen lay in wait on a ridge above the approach road to the settlement.

Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Sharon, described the ambush as “a sophisticated act of premeditated murder.”

The assailants apparently detonated roadside charges as Bus No. 189--which makes the trip 10 times a day between the city of Bnei Brak, in Israel’s coastal plain, and the settlement of 4,000 people--approached Emmanuel’s front gate. Although most buses carrying Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza are armored, this one was protected only against rocks, police said.

Footage of the aftermath, broadcast on Israel Television, showed the badly damaged red-and-white bus listing to one side, its windshield smashed, most of its windows blown out and its side panels riddled by hundreds of bullets. Two cars that had been traveling behind the bus also were damaged in the attack. Blood, oil and gasoline spread across a roadway littered with discarded emergency medical paraphernalia. Two bodies covered by tarps lay alongside the bus.

Gadi Ronen, a medic from a nearby settlement, said bullets whistled around him as he arrived at the scene.

“Two cars were thrown on the side of the road and there was also an overturned jeep with a body next to it,” Ronen told Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper. “The bus itself was totally crushed.”

Ronen said he pulled two bodies from the bus.

Itiel Harir, a 13-year-old student at a religious seminary who lives at Emmanuel, said he was traveling home on the bus with several fellow students. He escaped by jumping from one of the windows after the shooting started. Itiel described gunmen charging the bus, firing and lobbing hand grenades.

“Fire caught at the rear of the bus and people shouted at the driver to stop,” Itiel said. “He stopped and people started jumping from the windows. It was very scary.”

A woman sitting beside him was hit and fell to the ground, the teenager said. He lost sight of his friends. “I didn’t even look back, I just ran home.”

A border patrol unit that arrived after the shooting began killed one of the gunmen, Israel Television reported. Two others are believed to have escaped. The army launched a search in the area, firing flares late into the night.

Gissin said the attack was carried out by a Hamas cell from Nablus whose members are included on a list of more than 30 militants Israel recently gave Zinni--suspects the Israelis have demanded that Arafat arrest. The gunman killed at the scene reportedly was related to a gunman killed last month in a shootout near Nablus with Israeli troops.

The Palestinian Authority insists that it has arrested about 180 militants, including 17 on the list of men Israel labels the most dangerous. But Israeli officials have dismissed the arrests as cosmetic and have complained that Arafat’s administration is not doing enough to destroy militant cells.

Gissin said Israel has no intention of targeting Arafat directly and denied that it is launching retaliatory strikes against the Palestinian Authority.

“Nobody said that we’re taking him out. It is what he represents,” Gissin said. “He represents terrorism; he heads a coalition of terror. If he won’t dismantle it, we’ll take it out. If he won’t bring them to justice, we’ll bring justice to them.”

In Gaza City, Palestinians reported that Israeli planes dropped at least five bombs on a security compound close to Arafat’s office and home that houses the headquarters of the Palestinian naval police and Force 17, Arafat’s presidential guard. Planes also bombed the Rafah airport, which was taken out of commission in an earlier raid. Palestinians said at least seven people were lightly injured in the air raids.