Israeli tanks entered the West Bank city of Nablus on Wednesday afternoon, Palestinian witnesses said. About 300 to 400 tanks were in position on all sides of the city, and some fired at barricades set up by gunmen.
The witnesses said the tanks fired shells at an abandoned Palestinian National Security Forces' position near the village of Beit Iba, on the northwestern outskirts of the city before they began moving inside.
Gunmen and Palestinian police were moving in the streets in groups throughout the city. The gunmen closed the main roads with sandbags and trash cans filled with sand, and planted home-made mines.
Elsewhere, sporadic battles erupted in Bethlehem, where a Palestinian policeman and a member of an armed wing of Arafat's Fatah movement bled to death after being wounded in a clash with Israeli troops Tuesday, Palestinian security sources said.
In the afternoon, the first ambulance allowed to collect Palestinian casualties in the city took the bodies of three civilians and two wounded men from a district near Manger Square to the nearby Beit Jala hospital.
"We expect there are at least 10 more (bodies) from that area," hospital director Peter Qumri told Reuters.
About 200 Palestinians, most of them armed, remained in the Church of the Nativity, after taking refuge there Tuesday. "(The situation) is complicated because it's a sacred place and we don't want to use live fire (against it)," Isreal’s army spokesman Ron Kitrey told a news briefing in Jerusalem.
"There are several channels of negotiation (going on) to try to achieve as close to a peaceful solution as possible."
The Vatican summoned the Israeli and US ambassadors and Arab League representatives to the Holy See to discuss peace probes as Israeli troops pinned down dozens of armed Palestinians in the Church of the Nativity, AFP reported.
In the northern West Bank, loud explosions and gun battles shook Jenin as dozens of tanks advanced from three sides and helicopter gunships fired on a refugee camp outside this town.
Israel said the camp harbors activists involved in the wave of suicide bombings that prompted the Israeli campaign.
Three Palestinian gunmen, a civilian man and woman and a 13-year-old boy were killed in the Jenin area, according to Palestinian security sources. An Israeli reserve officer was killed Wednesday morning in Jenin and four soldiers were wounded, Kitrey told reporters.
U.S.
On the political front, the White House said Wednesday that it was open to pushing ahead with efforts to craft a political resolution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians despite the lack of a ceasefire agreement.
However, US President George W. Bush "believes ... it is easier to get to the political process once the ceasefire goes into effect," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters. "There are two vital guidelines that the president is seeking to advance. They can work independently, they can work together. The important thing is for the parties to begin focus, with the United States' assistance, to making progress in both of them or either of them," said the spokesman.
"But the president has always been open to whatever allows a constructive dialogue to take place," he said, days after telling reporters that Bush would back efforts to "leap-frog" Tenet into Mitchell if that was both parties' wish. "
Fleischer also renewed the US call for the Palestinians to make "100-percent" efforts to halt anti-Israeli violence while sticking by Washington's support for Israel's "right to defend itself." "The president's position remains clear ... that, in the wake of suicide bombings and attacks that took place in Israel, he understands and respects Israel’s right to defend herself," said Fleischer. "His message to Israel is that it is vital to remember that peace has got to be the result of any steps that are taken," he added.
EU
European Union foreign ministers, seeking to seize the Middle East peace initiative as Washington kept a low profile, were meeting on Wednesday night in an urgent search for a solution to fast-mounting violence.
The extraordinary meeting was scheduled as Israel pressed its military campaign against the Palestinians and flatly rejected the EU's proposal for an international peace conference. "It is clear that previous mediation has failed and we need new mediation," European Commission President Romano Prodi told a midday press conference in Brussels.
"We need the US, the EU, the UN, moderate Arab states, the Israelis, the Palestinians and Russia around the same table," he said.
But a senior Israeli official immediately rebuffed the call, saying: "There is no point holding such a conference before we reach a real ceasefire on the ground that the Palestinians will respect." "If such a conference were to take place at present, it would be focused solely on the fate of (Palestinian leader) Yasser Arafat," said the official from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office, asking not to be named.
Anti-Israel protests have erupted across Europe and the Middle East since the weekend, with 7,000 demonstrators notably gathering in Athens on Wednesday in support of the Palestinians.
Thousands of people marched through Paris late Tuesday to demand an Israeli withdrawal and an international force to protect civilians, while some 2,000 demonstrators massed outside the Israeli embassy in Copenhagen, with a smaller protest in Italy. Oslo, Stockholm and Berlin saw similar demonstrations at the weekend. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
