Israelis Kill 7 in West Bank Actions

Israeli troops killed at least seven Palestinians and wounded dozens more Wednesday during fighting in and around the West Bank city of Jenin, drawing charges from Palestinians that the Jewish state is using the terrorist attack on the United States as an excuse to escalate military action.

In the predawn hours today, Israeli tanks also thrust into a second West Bank city, Jericho. Palestinian peace negotiator and resident Saeb Erekat told reporters that Palestinians were resisting and that there was heavy street fighting.

Palestinian security officials said the Israelis attacked a large training facility and wounded at least one person. Palestinian gunmen had killed an Israeli teacher and the man driving her to work on Sunday just a few miles north of Jericho.

Among the dead during the fighting in and near Jenin were two leaders of the militant Islamic Jihad movement. Security sources identified them as Wael Assaf, 19, and Assad Dakah, 28, who were killed along with a third militant, Sufian Arda, in the village of Arrabeh.

Security sources described Assaf as the leader of Islamic Jihad in the northern West Bank, and Dakah as the group’s leader in the town of Tulkarm. In a statement, the army said the three were killed in an exchange of fire when special forces tried to arrest them.

Palestinians said the three died when Israelis shelled the home of the Arda family. Sufian Arda’s 12-year-old sister, Balqees, also died in the attack, Palestinian sources said.

Tanks first surrounded Jenin late Monday night. Forces shelled a refugee camp, then briefly moved into the city Wednesday morning, destroying a Palestinian security headquarters before withdrawing and taking up positions in Palestinian-controlled territory outside of town.

Troops destroyed two more security buildings and a checkpoint near Jenin. It was the army’s second incursion into Jenin in a month.

Palestinian sources said an Israeli helicopter also attacked a convoy of Palestinian security officers near the village of Tamoun, killing three men.

An Israeli military spokesman said the army is intensifying its search for Islamic militants in the Jenin area, which the Israelis say is a launching site for many suicide bombing attacks against Israel, in an effort to thwart such assaults.

“Nothing has changed,” Lt. Col. Olivier Rafowicz said. “We continue to fight these snakes.”

In another development Wednesday night, an Israeli who lived in the Jewish settlement of Alfei Menashe was killed in a shooting while driving with her husband near the northern West Bank town of Kalkilya. The army said she was 47 years old but did not release her name.

The fighting intensified as hopes faded that Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat would meet any time soon to begin cease-fire talks. The two have been negotiating for weeks to begin a series of meetings meant to end more than 11 months of fighting. They were supposed to hold their first round of talks this week, but those plans were put on hold after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

At a news conference Wednesday in Washington, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said he had telephoned Peres, Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, urging them to go through with the cease-fire talks despite the attacks in the U.S.

Arafat also postponed a planned visit Wednesday to Damascus for his first effort at rapprochement with Syrian President Bashar Assad. Syria has kept Arafat at arm’s length since he signed the 1993 Oslo peace accords with Israel.

Arafat and other Palestinian officials spent much of Wednesday trying to repair the public relations disaster caused when news organizations recorded jubilant Palestinians dancing in the streets of East Jerusalem, the West Bank city of Nablus and other Palestinian areas after the attacks on the U.S.

In a news conference held in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian officials condemned the terrorist attacks and said the Palestinians are now at greater risk.

“We have two fears,” said Palestinian journalist and political analyst Ghassan Katif. One, he said, is that “Israel will exploit this situation to make gains by framing Palestinians.” The other, he said, is that “Israel will exploit the diversion of attention by carrying out atrocities in Palestinian territories.”