Israel Vows New Offensive; Tanks Enter Gaza City

Israel announced Wednesday that it was widening its war on the Palestinian Authority of Yasser Arafat, and then bombarded his headquarters for the second time in less than 24 hours, launched a four-pronged assault on the Gaza Strip and sent tanks into Gaza City--a first.

Israeli tanks roared into the Gaza Strip early today from the south, east and north, while naval gunboats firing heavy machine guns pummeled Palestinian targets in the west. Heavy gun battles were reported around Gaza City and in the southern town of Rafah. At least five Palestinians were killed. There were no Israeli casualties, the army said in a statement.

As armor and infantry moved into Gaza City, calls went out on loudspeakers at local mosques urging Palestinians to rise to the defense of their land. Israeli forces blew up the broadcasting center of the Voice of Palestine radio and television in Gaza City, the army confirmed.

The latest offensive follows the Palestinian attack of an Israeli army checkpoint in the West Bank on Tuesday night in which six Israeli soldiers were killed. Palestinian militia members loyal to Arafat claimed responsibility for the attack and vowed to step up their assaults on Israeli troops, Jewish settlers and the roadblocks.

By all accounts, the hostilities that have rocked this region for nearly 17 months were escalating to yet another dangerous, bloody level. Seventeen Palestinians were killed Wednesday, most of them policemen; 17 Israelis and 47 Palestinians have been killed in the last week.

After dark Wednesday, Israel’s U.S.-supplied F-16 warplanes and Apache helicopter gunships pounded targets in three Palestinian towns. Missiles hit Arafat’s Gaza City compound, flattened a three-story police headquarters in the Gazan town of Rafah and destroyed a police station in the West Bank town of Jenin. Early today, Israeli missiles for the second time in less than 24 hours hit Arafat’s Ramallah headquarters, this time destroying a guest house adjacent to the building where Arafat was staying. He was not hurt.

Troops and at least a dozen tanks and armored personnel carriers moved into Gaza City’s eastern Shijaya neighborhood, security officials and the Israeli army said. Israel has staged numerous incursions into the Gaza Strip but had not entered Gaza City, the principal headquarters of the Palestinian Authority.

Palestinian police raced to the city’s edge early today to confront the armor. Tanks pushed deeper into the city toward a sprawling beachfront refugee camp but eventually withdrew from Gaza City around dawn.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in urgent consultation with his Cabinet, ordered the army Wednesday afternoon to increase the frequency and intensity of its raids and airstrikes on Palestinian targets, embarking on what Israeli officials called a “new course of action.”

Sharon’s spokesman, Raanan Gissin, said the government would also consider cutting off all access to Arafat. Arafat has been under virtual house arrest in his offices in the West Bank town of Ramallah since Israeli tanks flanked the compound in early December. But international diplomats, solidarity delegations and journalists have continued to visit him--at least until now.

In Ramallah, Arafat emerged defiantly from his offices. “No one can scare the Palestinian people,” he told reporters, vowing he will yet see the Palestinian flag “raised on the walls of Jerusalem.”

In an earlier raid Wednesday, the Israeli army fired a missile into the compound not far from where Arafat was working.

It and the shelling early today were the closest Israel has come to actually harming Arafat, although Sharon insists that is not his goal.

Marwan Barghouti, a top militia commander and one of Arafat’s key lieutenants, said Palestinian gunmen will step up their attacks on Israeli soldiers at roadblocks in the West Bank and Gaza, part of what he called a “new phase of Palestinian resistance.”

Amid much internal debate, Palestinian gunmen in recent weeks have been shifting their operations back to attacks on Jewish settlers and soldiers. Many Palestinians realize that they lost enormous international support when militant groups resorted to suicide bombings that targeted civilians in Israel, and they believe that soldiers and settlers will be seen as more legitimate targets--a distinction Israel does not make.

In addition to the aerial assaults Wednesday, Israel imposed an extraordinarily strict closure by banning Palestinian travel among five West Bank cities. Although Israeli government officials insist that they distinguish between ordinary Palestinian civilians and the gunmen who attack Israelis, the closure in effect trapped tens of thousands of Palestinians in besieged towns on the eve of an important Muslim holiday.

At Kalandiyeh, the main checkpoint on the road between Jerusalem and Ramallah, Israeli soldiers were clearly tense Wednesday. They crouched behind barriers and fired warning shots at anyone who approached, including a Swiss aid worker in a car with diplomatic license plates.

About a block away, hundreds of Palestinians were stranded as they tried to reenter Ramallah, or as they got out of Ramallah over circuitous routes through a rock quarry and muddy hills but couldn’t continue on their way because of the restrictions.

Most clutched bags and were headed to family homes in other towns for this weekend’s Eid al-Adha feast, which marks the end of the annual hajj, or pilgrimage. It didn’t look like many would make it.

Fadel Zeidan, a 46-year-old banker dressed in a suit and tie, walked half a mile to get out of Ramallah but was stuck on a crowded roadside doubting that he would reach the village near Jenin where his family lives. Unless his luck improved, he said, it would be the first Eid al-Adha feast not spent with his wife and six children. He choked back tears at the thought.

“This is the most important day of the year to be with the family,” he said. Like many Palestinians, Zeidan celebrates with gifts for the children, a huge meal of mutton (sacrificed for the occasion) and visits with relatives.

Eight-year-old Ghassan Ali was trying to get back to Ramallah after the closure caught him at school in another town on the outskirts of Jerusalem. “I want to go home,” he said, standing near the checkpoint as a woman begged a soldier to relent. “But the soldier told me to go back.”

In the West Bank city of Nablus, where nine Palestinian police officers and militants were killed Wednesday morning and a 10th died later in the day, the situation remained especially tense, residents said. Israeli soldiers seized several apartment buildings on the edge of Nablus’ Balata refugee camp, one of the most hard-line bastions of Palestinian militancy. Israeli snipers took up positions, and bulldozers were seen moving into the area after nightfall.

Eight of the policemen killed in Nablus and Ramallah by Israeli troops belonged to the National Security force, the Palestinian police service that is widely regarded as the most professional. Its members until now had largely stayed out of the conflict that has raged since September 2000, and it had not been accused by Israeli officials of the kinds of attacks attributed to other police agencies.

It remains to be seen whether the National Security force, having lost eight of its men, will join in the attacks now--a step that would further escalate the fight.

Among Israelis, meanwhile, the deaths of so many soldiers in such a short period was a devastating blow. The attack on the soldiers has forced Israel to reevaluate many of its military tactics while cranking up right-wing pressure on Sharon to destroy Arafat’s regime.

Sharon emerged from a special Cabinet meeting and announced a “different” military campaign but did not offer details. Israeli security officials said the army will employ the same actions already in use--incursions into Palestinian towns and cities, assassinations and arrests--but on a much larger scale.

At the same time, aides to Sharon said, the army will have to adapt its operations to the guerrilla-style tactics employed with increasing efficacy by Palestinian fighters. Israeli troops will be deployed in greater numbers throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip and will more frequently go on the offensive rather than waiting to retaliate, the aides said.

The army fortified roadblocks Wednesday but will probably replace many with mobile units. Top army commanders, and now several politicians, say the establishment of stationary, vulnerable checkpoints will have to be rethought.