Israel Intensifies Assault on Palestinians

Israel widened its largest military campaign against the Palestinians in years Saturday, taking large swaths of Palestinian territory and invading or surrounding almost every major city or town in the West Bank.

Israeli tanks and troops seized control of two more cities, Kalkilya and Tulkarm, and moved into the heart of the biblical town of Bethlehem on Saturday night amid intense shooting and shelling. At least eight Palestinians were killed, including a young man shot to death a few paces from the traditional site of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem’s Manger Square. And, for the first time in the yearlong uprising, several Arab Christians were killed.

The offensive follows the assassination Wednesday of an Israeli Cabinet minister, and Israeli officials said they want to force Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to surrender the politician’s killers and crack down on extremists. The army said Saturday evening that it had “arrested or killed” at least 20 suspected Palestinian militants and would press the offensive “as much as is required.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, speaking on Israeli television Saturday night, warned of a “total blood bath” if the escalating violence continues.

The last year of fighting between Israel and the Palestinians has been characterized by Israeli incursions into Palestinian-ruled land, but most were brief. In the last three days, Israel has gone deeper and is operating simultaneously in more areas than ever before.

Never in the seven years since Arafat’s Palestinian Authority was established has Israel mounted such a large-scale land assault against the Palestinians. It was in 1994 that Israel began withdrawing from territory--the West Bank and Gaza Strip--that it had captured in the 1967 Middle East War.

The unprecedented escalation reinforces alarm here that the conflict is careening out of control. Violence in this region also could undermine the Bush administration’s campaign in Afghanistan by driving moderate Arab states away from the coalition that Washington has sought to forge.

Aides to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon insisted that they were exercising “self-defense.” But Palestinians said Israel was using the assassination as a pretext to reoccupy Palestinian territory.

In Kalkilya, in the northern West Bank just a mile or so from the border with Israel, Faris Uwaisi heard tanks pass his home about 2:30 Saturday morning. With helicopters thumping overhead, the tanks and infantrymen advanced past a black granite “Monument to the Martyrs” at the town’s southern entrance, destroyed a police post and then seized three houses.

Soldiers hoisted Israeli flags atop their new positions and set about erecting water tanks and sandbag fortifications--a sign that they planned to stay awhile. The family of shoemaker Ali Khalef was ejected from its home by the soldiers, but family members of teacher Wasim Shoubaki were held against their will by soldiers, who also refused to allow them to talk to reporters.

“What do they want? Are they trying to show their muscles?” said Uwaisi, an official with the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Education who tried to shelter his wife and six children from the mayhem outside his door. “I think this is all a plot to reoccupy all of the West Bank and destroy the Palestinian Authority. But it will only harm the Israelis more. It will only create more militants and more terrorists in the region.”

Kalkilya looked like a ghost town at midday Saturday. Thick black smoke from burning tires hung in the air. Residents stayed indoors and peered from behind window grates. Electricity had been cut in sections of the town. As part of the operation in Kalkilya, Israeli special forces seized three members of the radical Islamic Hamas movement and killed a fourth.

Israel’s multi-pronged thrust also included the towns and cities of Tulkarm, Jenin, Ramallah and Nablus--all of which have had tanks move into their outskirts or deeper. Only Jericho and Hebron were free of new incursions. Israeli officials said they had information that new suicide bombings were being planned in and launched from Kalkilya and Tulkarm.

Bethlehem, especially, was rocked by intense fighting and heavy gunfire and shelling well into the night. Israeli ground troops advanced street by street through the town just south of Jerusalem, meeting resistance from armed Palestinian militiamen.

After dark, tanks plowed into Bethlehem’s downtown commercial center while helicopters shelled a strip of stores, residents said. At least eight people were injured in the shelling, but gunfire was so intense that the wounded could not be evacuated. The army said it fired missiles into what it identified as a group of gunmen about to attack.

Earlier, about noon, Bethlehem resident Rania Kharoufeh, a 26-year-old mother of two, was killed by shrapnel from Israeli tank fire as she and her children arrived at a friend’s house. Johnny Thalgiyeh, 19, was shot to death in the late afternoon as he stood outside the Il Bambino souvenir shop in Manger Square.

A senior Israeli military officer said Palestinian resistance was toughest in Bethlehem, which he said accounted for the higher casualties. Most of the Palestinian gunfire came from armed militias that Arafat has threatened to ban. The formal security forces stayed out of the fight for the most part, the official said. A senior Palestinian intelligence officer in Bethlehem said the security forces had strict orders: “Do not engage.”

Among the dead were police officers and gunmen, but also at least two women and bystanders. At least three Israeli soldiers were wounded.

Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said the army was acting in “every place where terror acts are carried out or are planned.” He added his voice to denials that Israel’s goal was to destroy the Palestinian Authority and offered to pull back troops from places where Arafat “has sincere intentions to end the violence and prevent attacks.”

But Palestinian officials said they considered the recent actions Israel’s declaration of war. They accused Israel of working to destroy recent international efforts to resuscitate peace talks and announced plans to seek an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council.

“The Israeli army has a plan to escalate militarily, and it is pursuing this plan, in direct challenge to all international efforts to calm the situation and to revive the peace process,” Arafat said in Gaza City after meeting with Russia’s Middle East envoy, Andrei Vdovin.

Arafat’s police have arrested several militants from the radical faction that claimed responsibility for the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi. Arafat on Saturday also reiterated his decision to outlaw militias that violate a tenuous cease-fire. But Palestinian officials have said they will not comply with Israel’s demand to extradite suspects.

Sharon apparently has decided to ignore American entreaties that he restore calm. On Friday, the U.S. State Department told Israel to end military incursions into areas under the control of the Palestinian Authority. The incursions are “not helpful, complicate the situation and should be halted,” the department said.

The senior Israeli military officer

said the new raids on Palestinian territory are a signal to the Palestinian Authority to clamp down or else.

“All the actions we have taken so far are reversible,” he said. “But we are waiting to see what the Palestinians do. If they don’t act, we will take more measures as needed.”