Israel Arrests 3 in Elite Unit, Claims Arafat Link

Israel on Thursday announced the arrest of three members of an elite Palestinian security force that allegedly planned to plant a bomb near Israel’s military headquarters in the West Bank.

Despite the announcement, Israeli officials went ahead with plans to ease some restrictions on the Palestinian population.

The announcement came just a few days before Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is to meet with President Bush in Washington, where the Israeli leader intends to make the case that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat is directly involved in planning attacks on Israelis.

In a statement, Sharon’s office said that the three men belong to Force 17, a military arm of Arafat’s Fatah faction.

“These arrests just prove that it was a strategic decision by Yasser Arafat to start all the violence,” said Raanan Gissin, Sharon’s spokesman. “He uses his most loyal people to do the job.”

Those arrested are part of a group of more than two dozen Palestinian militants, headed by the commander of Force 17 in the West Bank city of Ramallah, that is responsible for at least 25 shooting attacks that have killed eight Israelis and wounded about 20, the announcement said. The three were arrested as they were allegedly on their way Sunday to place a bomb in the Neve Yaakov Jewish neighborhood in a disputed part of Jerusalem, captured by Israel in 1967. The area is next to Israel’s West Bank military headquarters.

Voice of Palestine radio issued a denial of the Israeli charges Thursday night. Citing a “responsible Palestinian source,” the radio said the Palestinian Authority “rejected completely” the notion that “high Fatah officials in the West Bank [were] involved in military operations against Israeli forces.”

Force 17 was formed in the 1970s as a personal security force for Arafat and other Palestine Liberation Organization leaders. It is one of numerous Palestinian security agencies and has several thousand members.

Clashes between Palestinians and Israelis continued to claim victims Thursday. In the West Bank city of Hebron, six Palestinian children suffered minor burns when Israeli border police lobbed a stun grenade into their school playground during recess. The army said the troops were firing at stone throwers and that the grenade landed in the schoolyard by accident. Palestinians denied that stones were thrown.

Near the West Bank town of Kalkilya, the body of a 17-year-old Palestinian was found in an orange grove. Palestinians said he apparently was shot during clashes Wednesday night between soldiers and youths.

The prime minister’s office said that the Force 17 group, which it called a “terror organization,” continues to be active in Ramallah. However, the army still allowed Palestinians to pass through roadblocks in and out of the city with relative ease Thursday.

The army cut off Ramallah, the commercial and political center of the West Bank, from dozens of surrounding villages Sunday, sparking Palestinian protests and international criticism.

The army also allowed more Palestinians on Thursday to enter and leave Hebron and the West Bank city of Bethlehem. Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer has said that restrictions will be eased in the two cities, which have been relatively quiet in recent weeks.

But for many Palestinians living in and around Hebron and Bethlehem, daily life continues the nightmarish pattern it assumed shortly after the outbreak of violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip at the end of September. For months, Israel has imposed blockades around towns and at checkpoints on main roads that have made travel within the territories excruciating for thousands of Palestinians.

An Israeli roadblock remained in place Thursday near Halhoul on the main road to Hebron from Jerusalem. Lines of taxis pulled up on either side of a 6-foot-high dirt barricade that Israeli army troops bulldozed across the road weeks ago. People wanting to travel into or out of Hebron were forced to abandon cars on one side of the barricade, scramble over it with their packages and children and hop into cars on the other side.

“I do this three or four times a week, whenever I want to buy food in Hebron or things I need for the house,” said Nimeh Sabarneh, a 45-year-old mother of seven who lives in the village of Beit Omar. “It’s humiliating. This is a very difficult way to live.”

Taxi drivers at the barricade said their business has slowed to a trickle as fewer Palestinians dare to leave their homes. Trips that used to take half an hour now routinely take two or three hours or longer, depending on the number of checkpoints and the orders troops are following.

“We haven’t seen any real changes on the ground yet,” said Hassan Mahmoud, a driver who added that his business is off 60% from what it was before the Palestinian uprising began. “The soldiers let you through or don’t based on the mood they are in. If they are in a good mood, you go through, if they are in a bad mood, they turn you back.”

Israel says the roadblocks are one way of stopping the drive-by shootings and roadside bombings that have claimed the lives of many Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since September. Moves that appear to be capricious to the Palestinians are taken because of security needs, army spokesmen say.

Since the violence began, about 425 people--most of them Palestinians--have died in the fighting. Thousands have been wounded.

Sharon has said he will try to restore some normalcy to Palestinian life in areas of the West Bank and Gaza where there are no attacks on Israeli soldiers or civilians.

However, he has also said his government will increase economic and military pressure on the Palestinian Authority until it takes steps to halt attacks that Israel claims are directed by Arafat or by militias that report to him.