Sharon Invites Barak to Be Defense Chief

In a new surge of violence, Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen battled for hours Friday, confronting Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon with another challenge even as he struggled to put together a government.

Sharon invited defeated Prime Minister Ehud Barak to be his defense minister and also spoke by telephone with Yasser Arafat, urging the Palestinian Authority president to “cease terrorism” so that peace talks can resume, according to a spokesman.

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell announced that he will visit the region later this month on his first trip overseas, “to share views.”

At the same time, however, dozens of Palestinians were wounded and one killed in gunfire that raged in the West Bank towns of Ramallah, Hebron and Tulkarm and in the Gaza Strip. Later, for the second night running, Israeli troops guarding the Jewish settlement of Psagot retaliated with heavy fire against Palestinian shooters in Ramallah.

These were the fiercest gun battles in weeks, but they continued a steady escalation that began with Tuesday’s landslide election of Sharon, a right-wing hawk who advocates a hard-line position in negotiations with the Palestinians.

As the wounded were rushed to hospitals, Arafat telephoned Sharon--the first direct contact between them since the election--and Israeli television reported Friday night that a meeting between the two die-hard enemies might take place within days.

Sharon told Arafat that he is willing to relieve the economic troubles plaguing the Palestinian territories, due in large part to an Israeli blockade of the West Bank and Gaza. According to Israeli media reports of the conversation, he said that he could distinguish between terrorists and honest Palestinians with families to support.

But Sharon has made clear that the territorial concessions the outgoing government offered the Palestinians are no longer on the table. He received backing on this position earlier in the week from Barak and the Bush administration.

The Palestinians, by contrast, are insisting on picking up where they left off with Barak’s negotiators while also threatening to press ahead with the intifada that has claimed nearly 400 lives in the last four months.

In his first extended interview since his election, Sharon told the top-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper Friday that he will seek a “nonbelligerency” agreement with the Palestinians, without a timetable, instead of the comprehensive final agreement that Barak worked so hard on but failed to achieve.

“There is no doubt that Mr. Barak made it very difficult for every future government in Israel,” Sharon said of Barak’s willingness to compromise. “Yet, his way failed. I feel sadness for him. So many dreams. It all fell apart in his hands.”

It was this volatile mix that, in Washington, Powell announced he will venture into in two weeks. Powell said he plans to leave the capital Feb. 23 for a five-day mission that will include stops in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan in addition to Israel and Palestinian areas. He said he plans to meet with Sharon, among others.

“The purpose of the trip will be to share views with friends in the region, especially in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, to make an assessment of the situation,” Powell said.

President Bush also trod tentatively into the realm of public Middle East diplomacy, saying he had spoken with Arafat and other leaders in the region, urging calm.

“I said it was very important to give the newly elected leader of Israel a chance, a chance to form a government, and a chance to do what he said he wanted to do, which is to promote the peace in the region,” Bush told reporters. “And I certainly hope that people recognize that change does not necessarily mean that the peace process won’t go forward.”

Sharon held his first postelection meeting Friday with the man he humiliated at the polls, Barak, to discuss forming a joint government.

In a bid to entice Barak and his Labor Party to form an alliance with him, Sharon formally invited Barak to serve as defense minister, a proposal he first raised during the campaign. Barak said neither yes nor no.

Sharon also dangled several other key posts in front of the center-left Labor, which is in the midst of an internal war over whether to remain in the opposition or enter into Sharon’s rightist coalition.

Friday’s increase in violence reminded Sharon of the urgency of assembling a government and charting a policy to deal with the Palestinians.

The commander of the Israeli army, Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, forecast a dangerous escalation in Palestinian violence that could seep throughout the region. He predicted that Arafat will conclude that dialogue with Sharon goes nowhere, and will step up Palestinian militia operations to push Sharon into hasty, reckless reprisals that will isolate Israel.

On Thursday, a car bomb exploded in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in central Jerusalem. Late Thursday and early Friday, Palestinian gunmen in Ramallah opened fire on the Psagot settlement and were answered with heavy machine-gun and tank fire.

The Israeli army said its soldiers had shot mostly at buildings under construction that were being used by the gunmen. But residents said the nightlong barrage damaged homes and the offices of the Palestinian Red Crescent and the newspaper Al Hayat al Jadida, a mouthpiece for Arafat.

“It was the most intense that I can remember,” Al Hayat staffer Farouk Udwan said in an interview. “More than 100 bullets slammed into the facade of our building.”

He said that the staff cowered for four hours in the building.

Stone-throwing demonstrations in Ramallah that began after Muslim prayers Friday grew after Palestinian gunmen opened fire on Israeli troops, who retaliated in greater force. The shooting raged all afternoon and picked up late Friday and early today, again in the area of the Psagot settlement.

Gun battles were also reported throughout the Gaza Strip and in other West Bank towns, including Hebron. More than 30 Palestinians and a French news photographer were injured. There were no Israeli casualties, an army spokeswoman said.

A 17-year-old Palestinian goatherd was shot to death by Israeli troops as he tended his flock near a Jewish settlement in Gaza, Palestinians said. No clashes were reported in the area at the time. The army spokeswoman said the incident was under investigation.

Elsewhere in Gaza, thousands of Islamic militants rallied, burning effigies of Sharon and vowing to carry out suicide bomb attacks.

“Sharon’s victory is the first step toward the grave for what is called the Israeli state,” declared Abdulaziz Rantisi, a radical Islamic leader.

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Times staff writer James Gerstenzang in Washington contributed to this report.