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Angry Israel cuts ties to Arafat
Compiled from Times wires JERUSALEM -- Israel cut contacts with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat early today and said it will launch widespread operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to hunt down and disarm militants after Palestinian gunmen killed 10 Israelis in a bus ambush Wednesday night outside a Jewish settlement. Meeting in Tel Aviv, the eight-member Security Cabinet held Arafat directly responsible for the bus attack outside Emmanuel, the West Bank settlement. In a statement, the ministers said Arafat "is no longer relevant to Israel and Israel will no longer have any connection with him." The decision to launch further operations in the Palestinian-controlled areas came after F-16s already had bombed Palestinian security offices in the West Bank and Gaza -- including buildings in Arafat's presidential compound in Gaza -- in retaliation. Arafat was in the West Bank town of Ramallah during the attacks. "As far as someone to deal with, he does not exist," said Danny Ayalon, diplomatic adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said of Arafat in a telephone interview. "He is the source of all the problems." The government action was triggered by apparently coordinated attacks that included a double suicide bombing in the Gaza Strip around the same time that gunmen carried out one of the deadliest Palestinian assaults outside a Jewish settlement in more than 14 months of bloodshed. A bus carrying about 40 people from the Israeli coastal plain was only a few hundred yards from the front gate of Emmanuel about 6 p.m. when Palestinian gunmen detonated two roadside charges, then sprayed the bus with bullets and lobbed grenades, an army spokesman said. Rescue workers and Israeli army forces who arrived at the scene found themselves pinned down by gunfire, and ambulance drivers said they were at first unable to reach or evacuate the wounded. An Israeli army spokesman later said a 14-year-old boy, a border patrolman and an army reservist were among the dead. The militant Islamic organization Hamas claimed responsibility for both the bus assault and the suicide bombings. The attacks and retaliation came a day after U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni asked both sides to hold their fire for 48 hours as he works to secure an end to bloodletting that has claimed about 1,000 lives. The clashes threatened to destroy his efforts. In a statement condemning the attacks, Zinni warned that Arafat and his administration "must move immediately to arrest those responsible for these attacks and to destroy the infrastructure of the terror organizations that support them. Coexistence with these organizations or acquiescence in their activities is simply not acceptable. Palestinians must act against these groups and they must act now." Before the Israeli Security Cabinet met, Arafat issued a late-night order that all offices and institutions of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another militant organization, be closed in the West Bank and Gaza. His office issued a statement condemning the attacks on the Jewish settlers and renewing the Palestinian Authority's plea for the U.N. Security Council to dispatch international observers to secure a cease-fire. Arafat has been under escalating pressure from the Bush administration and the European Union to rein in militants and, in the process, avoid an all-out assault on his regime by Israel. After Islamic militants carried out a series of deadly suicide bombings inside Israel earlier this month, the Israeli government declared the Palestinian Authority a "terror-supporting entity." Israeli officials held Arafat responsible for Wednesday's attacks, despite Hamas' claim of responsibility. "We must take ... continuous action against the Palestinian Authority, even at the price of its collapse," said Danny Naveh, a minister without portfolio in the Israeli Cabinet. Infrastructure Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned that he would lead his National Union Party out of the government unless Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dismantles the Palestinian Authority. The Israeli army said the attacks in the West Bank and Gaza appeared to have been coordinated. In Gaza, the two Palestinian suicide bombers blew themselves up in the Gush Katif bloc of Jewish settlements, detonating explosives strapped to their bodies as they hurled themselves on the hoods of cars driven by Israelis. Three Israelis reportedly were injured in the bombings. The sequence of events in the West Bank unfolded outside the ultra-Orthodox settlement of Emmanuel, about five miles southwest of Nablus, after gunmen struck at 6 p.m. Police and army spokesmen said as many as three Palestinian gunmen lay in wait on a ridge above the approach road to the settlement. Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Sharon, described the ambush as "a sophisticated act of premeditated murder." The assailants apparently detonated roadside charges as Bus No. 189 -- which makes the trip 10 times a day between the city of Bnei Brak, in Israel's coastal plain, and the settlement of 4,000 people -- approached Emmanuel's front gate. Although most buses carrying Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza are armored, this one was protected only against rocks, police said. Footage of the aftermath, broadcast on Israel Television, showed the badly damaged red-and-white bus listing to one side, its windshield smashed, most of its windows blown out and side panels riddled by hundreds of bullets. Two cars traveling behind the bus also were damaged in the attack. Blood, oil and gasoline spread across a roadway littered with discarded emergency medical paraphernalia. Two bodies covered by tarps lay alongside the bus. Itiel Harir, a 13-year-old student at a religious seminary who lives at Emmanuel, said he was traveling home on the bus with several fellow students. He escaped by jumping from one of the windows after the shooting started. Itiel described gunmen charging the bus, firing and lobbing hand grenades. "Fire caught at the rear of the bus and people shouted at the driver to stop," Itiel said. "He stopped and people started jumping from the windows. It was very scary." A border patrol unit that arrived after the shooting began killed one of the gunmen, Israel Television reported. Two others are believed to have escaped. The army launched a search in the area, firing flares into the night. Sharon's spokesman Gissin said Israel has no intention of targeting Arafat directly and denied that it is launching retaliatory strikes against the Palestinian Authority. "Nobody said that we're taking him out. It is what he represents," Gissin said. "He represents terrorism; he heads a coalition of terror. If he won't dismantle it, we'll take it out. If he won't bring them to justice, we'll bring justice to them." In Gaza City, Palestinians reported that Israeli planes dropped at least five bombs on a security compound close to Arafat's office. Planes also bombed the Rafah airport, which was taken out of commission in an earlier raid. Palestinians said at least seven people were lightly injured in the air raids. After midnight, Israeli helicopters targeted Arafat's West Bank headquarters in Ramallah, Palestinian security officials said, adding that Arafat left the building shortly before it was hit. Brig. Gen. Dan Harel, Israel's chief of military operations, said Arafat himself was not a target. Although both Israel and the Palestinians had responded positively Tuesday to Zinni's request for 48 hours of quiet, there was a Palestinian mortar attack on Jewish settlements Tuesday night, followed by an Israeli response Wednesday morning in the form of a helicopter gunship attack on a Gazan refugee camp. Four Palestinian militiamen died in the assault, and 20 people were injured. Witnesses said Israeli soldiers prevented ambulances from immediately evacuating the wounded. - Information from the Los Angeles Times and Associated Press was used in this report.
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From the Times wire desk
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