At least 35 Palestinians were killed Tuesday, according to Palestinian sources, in continued wide-spread military operations by the Israeli army in the West Bank and Gaza.
The Israeli army's chief of staff, General Shaul Mofaz, said "the current operation is the biggest since the beginning of the intifada but also the biggest in years."
He told reporters after meeting with the parliamentary defense and foreign affairs committee that the operation's aim "was not to reoccupy Ramallah or destroy the Palestinian Authority (but) hunt down terrorists where they are."
Palestinian information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo condemned the incursion. "The Israeli army is occupying the Palestinian Authority's capital, and that signifies that (Israeli Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon wants to occupy all the Palestinian territories," he told AFP.
West Bank Fatah-Tanzim chief Marwan Barghouti told AFP the occupation was "the last shot that Sharon had. But he has to know that he is stirring up hell, and the Israeli people will pay the price of his acts."
Incursions
In the Gaza Strip, the wide-scale military operation in the Jabalya refugee camp ended. Israeli troops destroyed several buildings in the camp, some used by Palestinian security, and blew up a metal works factory in which home-made Qassam-2 rockets and other weapons were manufactured.
Israeli troops and tanks stormed into the West Bank city of Ramallah Tuesday morning, pushing ahead with their largest attack in 18 months of conflict.
Israeli tanks and helicopters fired at Palestinian targets as infantry streamed into Ramallah. The Israeli army has occupied the entire city.
During the Ramallah incursion an anti-tank missile was fired Tuesday morning at an Israeli bulldozer, lightly injuring two soldiers. Later in the day, an Israeli soldier was moderately wounded in a gunbattle with Palestinian fighters.
Palestinian sources said Tuesday that israeli soldiers fired into the compound housing President Arafat's West Bank headquarters, wounding a security man, a senior Palestinian official said.
Information Minister Yasser Abed-Rabbo told Reuters that a security man was shot in the chest when bullets ripped into the compound in Ramallah. The man was in critical condition, hospital sources said.
Israeli elite units also moved into the Amari refugee camp next to Ramallah. The soldiers took over a Palestinian apartment building. Israeli forces fired for 10 to 15 minutes from tank-mounted machine guns on a hotel where journalists were photographing tanks targeting refugee camp.
No one was injured in the barrage, which sprayed the glass-enclosed stairwell and nearby rooms where about 40 journalists were working. An ABC news television camera left filming on a tripod when the journalists took cover was hit by seven bullets - one directly in the lens.
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat called refugees in a camp near Ramallah to resist Israeli occupation troops who seized the city in the biggest single operation in 17 months of violence. "The leadership calls on the residents of the brave Am'ari refugee camp not to respond to the calls of the occupation troops to gather in some public places and to remain steadfast and to resist occupation," an official PA spokesman told Reuters.
Annan
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his harshest criticism to date of Israel, called on its defense forces on Tuesday to urgently rein in its attacks on Palestinian civilians, saying they were fueling Palestinian hatred and despair.
In an emotional plea to both Israeli and Palestinian leaders, delivered at a public meeting of the UN Security Council, Annan said the Middle East death toll had soared to appalling levels and urged both sides to "lead your peoples away from disaster."
According to Reuters, he reserved his strongest criticism for Israel, urging it to end its "illegal occupation" of lands captured in the 1967 War and to urgently stop "the bombing of civilian areas, the assassinations, the unnecessary use of lethal force, the demolitions and the daily humiliation of ordinary Palestinians."
"Such actions gravely erode Israel's standing in the international community and further fuel the fires of hatred, despair and extremism among Palestinians," Annan said.
He added he was "particularly disturbed" by the rise in Palestinian suicide attacks deliberately targeting civilians, which he termed "morally repugnant," and called on the Palestinians to stop all acts of terror. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
