For the first time since the Palestinian uprising erupted 17 months ago, Israeli forces thrust deep into the densely-populated refugee camps in the West Bank, killing 11 Palestinians during intense gun battles and wounding dozens. An Israeli soldier was also killed and two others were wounded during the type of raid the army had refrained from carrying out for fear of sustaining high casualties.
In the early hours of yesterday morning, Israeli troops with the support of tanks and attack helicopters, forged into the Balata and Jenin refugee camps, which the army said were hotbeds of militancy. The raids came only hours after a Palestinian female suicide bomber blew herself up near an Israeli checkpoint close to the 1967 Green Line border, injuring three policemen.
In Balata, the biggest camp in the West Bank with some 20,000 residents, Israeli troops went house-to-house in an operation Israel said was aimed at rooting out militants and seizing illegal weapons. In some cases troops smashed holes in the walls of homes so that they would not be exposed to fire from Palestinian gunmen as they moved from one building to the next. The army knocked out electricity in the camp as the raid commenced, and it had not returned by last night.
The Israeli Defence Minister, Mr Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, said the two camps had become "cities of refuge" for militants and were places where "explosives and suicide bombers are being produced every day". The minister added that the army planned "to go in and out," and not to remain inside the camps for an extended period.
Eight Palestinians, most of them security force members, were killed in battles in the Jenin camp. One civilian, a 65-year-old man, was killed in the camp, located in the northern West Bank.
As the Israeli forces moved into Balata early yesterday, Palestinian militants resisted with gunfire from the narrow alleyways of the camp, and also detonated home-made bombs. Three Palestinian gunmen were killed in the battles, as was the Israeli soldier.
Despite reports that residents of Balata were fleeing the camp in the face of heavy gunfire and shelling, the vast majority did not leave, with only a few women and children being sent out by their families.
Incensed by the invasion, Mr Marwan Barghouti, a senior Fatah leader in the West Bank, accused Israel of perpetrating a "massacre". He also warned that if the troops did not withdraw "the Palestinians will strike against Israelis in all the occupied territories". A short while later, Palestinian gunmen began firing at the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Gilo, which is located on territory conquered by Israel in 1967. Israeli troops stationed there returned fire, and the exchanges continued for several hours.
The United States Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, telephoned Mr Sharon and asked that Israel show "restraint" in its actions, although there was no sign Mr Powell had demanded an end to the Israeli action. The only immediate criticism inside Israel came from opposition leader Mr Yossi Sarid, of the left-wing Meretz party, who described the operation as "total madness" and called on Mr Sharon to "pull the army out of the refugee camps immediately". While the Israeli army has made regular forays into Palestinian towns and cities during the intifada, it has largely kept out of the teeming refugee camps, where even the Palestinian Authority's control is often limited .
The camps provide ideal cover for Palestinian gunmen, and the army has stayed out, fearing it would sustain high casualties in any incursion.
Despite the violence, Israeli and Palestinian security officials met yesterday at the Erez checkpoint entrance to the Gaza Strip in the latest in a series of meetings.
The Palestinians arrived two hours late saying the delay was in protest over Israel's actions in the camps.