Sharon Rebuffs U.S. as Jenin Camp Is Seized

On the eve of a crucial U.S. diplomatic drive, Israel on Wednesday again refused to withdraw from the West Bank cities it invaded 13 days ago and said a deadly suicide bombing on a bus earlier in the day showed why the offensive must continue.

As the army reported that it had finally succeeded in conquering the beleaguered Jenin refugee camp, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and members of his government told the United States that although they appreciate America’s friendship, Israel will wage its war on Palestinian militants as it sees fit.

“I hope our great friend the United States understands that this is a war of survival for us,” Sharon told reporters during a visit to troops at an army base overlooking the Jenin camp. “It is our right to defend our citizens, and there should be no pressure put on us not to do that.”

In Madrid, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and ranking officials from three other world powers called for an immediate end to Israel’s military operation in the West Bank and for both Israelis and Palestinians to end “this senseless confrontation.”

Powell, who is expected to arrive in Israel late tonight, huddled in a crisis session with officials from the United Nations, the European Union and Russia in the city where the current peace process was born 11 years ago.

In the West Bank, the Israeli operation continued Wednesday. In the Jenin camp, mass surrenders were reported--along with large numbers of deaths. Scores of Palestinians and about 30 Israeli soldiers were killed in a week of fighting. Israel said Palestinian gunmen put up their stiffest resistance in Jenin; Palestinian officials accused Israel of “massacres.”

In the West Bank city of Bethlehem, a monk was shot and wounded when he stuck his head out of the besieged Church of the Nativity. Israeli troops said it was unclear who shot him.

And in the northern Israeli port city of Haifa, the bodies of eight Israelis were removed from a bus twisted and charred by a suicide bomber. The radical Islamic group Hamas claimed responsibility for the Haifa blast, the first suicide bombing to target civilians in a week and clearly designed to undermine Powell’s visit.

In the wake of the bombing, Sharon again rejected the U.S. and international pleas that Israeli forces pull out of the West Bank, digging in his heels hours before the arrival of Powell, who is making a long-shot attempt to broker a cease-fire.

Hundreds of right-wing Israelis rallied Wednesday night outside the U.S. Consulate in West Jerusalem to demand that the United States cease its pressure on the Sharon government. “Bush, Don’t Push!” read one gigantic banner.

The Israeli army announced today that it had pulled out of 24 villages overnight, while continuing to operate in the West Bank cities of Ramallah, Jenin, Nablus and Bethlehem and entering the villages of Birzeit and Dahariya.

On Wednesday, the Defense Ministry announced a pullout from three villages: Yatta, Kabatiya and Samua.

The Jenin refugee camp succumbed after a week of shelling by Israeli tanks and helicopters. By midmorning Wednesday, the resistance appeared to be all but over, although sporadic shooting was reported throughout the afternoon.

A Group of Holdouts Reported to Be Trapped

One group of about 50 holdouts was reported to have become trapped deep inside the camp without ammunition as Israeli bulldozers were bearing down. Jamal Hweil, one of the men, telephoned the pan-Arab Al Jazeera television network to claim that the Israeli army was refusing their surrender.

Hweil said the men feared that the bulldozers would demolish their hide-out, with them inside.

Residents of Jenin who were contacted by telephone said Israeli helicopters continued flying over the camp throughout the day without firing. But they said that bulldozers went into action around noon, knocking down homes damaged by the assault.

Omar abu Rashid, a Jenin businessman whose house overlooks the camp from half a mile away, said he saw five bulldozers demolish several hundred of the camp’s 2,000 to 2,500 homes.

Refugee families, ordered into the streets by the army, were dispersed to various neighboring villages. Men were separated from women. Residents complained of a large number of civilian casualties and the destruction of water, electrical and sewage infrastructure along with large amounts of private property--homes, stores and cars.

Journalists were barred from Jenin. Two convoys, from UNICEF and the International Committee of the Red Cross, were allowed into the city to drop off food, medicine, other relief supplies and a generator for the city’s hospital but were barred from the camp.

Saeb Erekat, a top Palestinian official, said about 500 Palestinians had been killed in Jenin and in Nablus, the largest West Bank city, since the offensive began late last month, dying in what he labeled a string of “Israeli massacres.”

Among the dead was Mahmoud Tawalbeh, the head of the radical Islamic Jihad in Jenin.

Outside Haifa, a Palestinian man with explosives strapped to his waist boarded bus No. 960 bound for Jerusalem during Wednesday morning’s rush hour. About 20 minutes later, he detonated his bomb, killing himself and eight Israelis, most of them police officers on the way to work.

The blast lifted the bus off the ground, tossed about nearby cars and shattered what had been a lull in the relentless suicide attacks that terrorized Israelis last month. Senior military commanders cited the relative quiet as proof that their invasion of the West Bank was doing the trick.

In addition to the dead, 14 people were hurt. Blood spilled down the side of the bus. Body parts were scattered the width of the highway.

As he was being wheeled in to surgery, bus driver Yehuda Akst told reporters that the bomber didn’t do anything to rouse suspicion. He might even have been wearing an Israeli army uniform, said Akst, who has driven a bus for 31 years.

Akst’s wife later told reporters that he was especially fearful, and vigilant, on the Haifa-Jerusalem route.

“Every day when he came home, he said that he felt fear,” said Zvia Akst, surrounded by friends and family in the waiting room of Haifa’s Rambam Hospital.

Dvora Sinvani also waited while her son, a 24-year-old engineering student and reservist, underwent surgery to remove pieces of metal that the bomb had embedded in his body.

“The truth is, I felt the situation had become more relaxed, but you can never tell,” she said.

Omri Saleh, 29, was driving along behind the bus “when suddenly everything exploded.” The Israeli Arab resident of Nazareth, who works for the electrical company, suffered minor injuries, including the loss of hearing in his left ear.

“I’m angry,” he said from a bed in the emergency room of another Haifa hospital where some of the victims were taken. “I used to live fine with the Jews, and now I can’t even go out at night. I just want this all to stop.”

There were conflicting reports about whether the bomber came from Tulkarm, a city invaded and just abandoned by Israeli troops, or Jenin.

Tensions Increase at Church of the Nativity

In Bethlehem, tensions increased at the Church of the Nativity on Wednesday when an Armenian monk was shot and wounded.

The Israeli army’s siege of the church, where more than 140 Palestinians and nearly 80 clerics have been trapped for eight days, has been marked by bloodshed. On Tuesday, a Palestinian police officer was killed and two Israeli border police officers wounded in a predawn shootout. Last week, a bell ringer was killed by Israeli troops when he ran out of the compound.

The Israeli military said it was unclear who shot the monk Wednesday and where he was in the compound. Israeli and Palestinian snipers are active in the area.

The incident came at a time when Israeli troops were bringing in food and supplies to drop off at the compound and came under fire, according to the Israeli army. The monk was rushed to a hospital in Jerusalem, where officials said he was badly hurt but in stable condition with a gunshot wound in the back.

The religious compound is shared by three houses of worship: an Armenian Orthodox church; a Franciscan monastery attached to St. Catherine’s, a Roman Catholic church; and the Church of the Nativity, which Greek Orthodox clerics share with the other two denominations. Although Palestinian gunmen have taken over the compound, they are concentrated in the Church of the Nativity and St. Catherine’s. The Armenian monks have kept their doors shut and reportedly did not allow the Palestinian fighters to enter their church, according to sources inside.

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Times staff writers Richard Boudreaux near Jenin and Sebastian Rotella in Jerusalem contributed to this report.