Seventeen Palestinians were killed yesterday in Israeli air, sea and ground raids in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as reprisals for the killing of six Israeli soldiers on Tuesday night by Palestinian gunmen near Ramallah. Peter Hirschberg reports from Jerusalem
Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, who they said were trying to fire mortar shells, bringing to 39 - 29 Palestinians and 10 Israelis - the number killed in a 48-hour period starting on Monday evening.
Palestinians said 12 of those killed in the pre-dawn raids were policemen. Four of the 17 were killed in a missile attack on Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat's seaside compound in Gaza, seven were killed when Israeli troops shelled two Palestinian police checkpoints near the West Bank town of Nablus, two in a fire-fight near the Balata refugee camp close to Nablus, one when warplanes hit a Palestinian police post near Ramallah, and one in a fire-fight also near Ramallah.
In one of the raids, Palestinian officials said missiles from helicopter gunships struck a building only metres from where Mr Arafat was spending the night in Ramallah.
Mr Arafat, who has been confined to Ramallah for more than two months, remained defiant. "The tanks and the missiles and the planes do not terrify us," he told supporters in the West Bank city yesterday. "We are not scared of the soldiers, the bombardment of our headquarters or prisons.
"The Israelis insist on avoiding the peace process but we will raise the Palestinian flag on the walls of Jerusalem." Palestinian officials said they planned to request an emergency UN session in an effort to stop the Israeli raids. The killing of the six Israeli soldiers - a group linked to Mr Arafat's Fatah movement took responsibility - sparked debate in Israel over the effectiveness of Mr. Sharon's policies. "It's clear that the strategy that we've had until now can't continue," said Israeli President, Mr Moshe Katzav.
Mr Sharon conceded at a meeting of leading ministers yesterday, who convened to discuss Israel's response to the escalating violence, that the country was facing what he described as an unprecedented and complicated situation. But Mr Sharon, who left-wing politicians have accused of contributing to the escalation of the conflict, said that he would not lead the country into war. "I am opposed to dragging this nation into war, period," Mr Sharon reportedly told the meeting.
The ministers authorised a proposal by the prime minister to step up military actions in Palestinian-controlled areas - especially the northern West Bank where many of the attacks have taken place - as part of what Mr Sharon called "a new outline in the war on terror".
Israeli F-16 warplanes attacked Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip late last night, wounding eight people, while helicopters struck Jenin in the West Bank, Palestinian officials said. The target at Rafah was a police and security services building.
Among those injured in the raid, in which homes were also damaged, were two policemen and an 18-year-old youth. In Jenin, the Israelis also attacked a police post. Israeli military sources said an Israeli was wounded by Palestinian gunfire near the Kissufim border crossing in the central Gaza Strip last night.
Meanwhile, the US yesterday pronounced itself "deeply troubled" by the recent upsurge in violence and said it was "discouraged" that more was not being done to stop it.