U.S. Brokers a Surrender at West Bank Site

RAMALLAH, West Bank —  Laying waste to one of the last remaining symbols of Palestinian autonomy, Israel bombarded the West Bank’s central security headquarters Tuesday and then--through direct U.S. mediation--agreed to a mass surrender by the enemy.

As his army expanded a 5-day-old offensive in the West Bank, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon threatened to send besieged Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat into exile with a “one-way ticket.”

The offensive reached one of Christianity’s holiest shrines as Israeli soldiers rolled into Bethlehem in tanks and surrounded Manger Square, meeting daylong resistance and prompting some Palestinian gunmen to take sanctuary in the adjacent Church of the Nativity on the site revered as Jesus’ birthplace.

U.S. diplomats, in marathon negotiations, secured a break in the Israeli army’s destruction of the sprawling Preventive Security Service complex commanded by Col. Jibril Rajoub after a relentless, eight-hour air and ground assault left it a shambles.

An estimated 250 men and women, exhausted and shaken, emerged from the ruins Tuesday afternoon. The women were freed, but the men were taken off in buses to a nearby military base for questioning, according to people involved. Unlike in some other surrenders during Israel’s massive military campaign across the West Bank, no one was reported killed.

At least 13 Palestinians died Tuesday across the West Bank. Seven were killed in Bethlehem in the day’s heaviest fighting. There and in Ramallah, Kalkilya and Tulkarm, Israelis have since Friday detained about 700 Palestinian men suspected of being terrorists. Early today, Israeli tanks occupied two more West Bank Palestinian localities, the city of Jenin and the village of Salfit.

A Palestinian man blew himself up Tuesday evening when security forces stopped him at a checkpoint in the West Bank village of Baqa al Sharqiya--the seventh suicide bombing in as many days.

Meanwhile, Israel continued scouring Arafat’s captured West Bank compound in Ramallah for documents linking his Palestinian Authority to terrorist attacks.

One such document, a copy of which was distributed by Israeli officials Tuesday, was a letter to the Palestinian Authority’s top financial officer, Fuad Shubaki, outlining expenses incurred by the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades for bomb-making materials, other weapons and memorial ceremonies for its suicide bombers.

The letter from the militant group, dated Sept. 16, says its cells need “about 5 to 9 bombs a week.” The estimated $4,500 monthly cost of the needed electrical components and chemicals, the letter adds, “is our largest expense.”

Israel offered no evidence that the money was given.

Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian Cabinet member and peace negotiator, said he knew nothing about the letter but did not believe it was authentic. “The Israelis are very busy fabricating things,” he said.

Israeli leaders say their offensive, Operation Protective Wall, is targeting a Palestinian terrorist infrastructure they blame for the recent wave of suicide blasts, which has killed more than 40 Israelis. The last week of combat has been the heaviest since the start of an armed Palestinian uprising in September 2000.

Rajoub, the most powerful security chief in the West Bank, has close ties to American officials and the CIA and has stayed largely out of the 18-month-old conflict. He also has been widely seen as a successor to the beleaguered Arafat.

Until Tuesday, U.S. diplomats had not intervened to slow Israel’s escalating assault on the Palestinian territories. They chose to do so for a favored son, Rajoub.

Israel declared that Rajoub was hiding suspected terrorists in his headquarters, an opulent complex built by the CIA in Beitunia, just west of Ramallah. Since Friday, diplomats had been attempting to persuade Israel to refrain from attacking the compound. But Israel insisted that the senior militants had to be removed.

The negotiations dragged on. The Palestinians were especially anxious that any surrender be dignified. When Palestinian police have given up in Ramallah, they have been forced to strip and submit to blindfolds or handcuffs.

As the negotiations continued late Monday, Israel opted to go ahead and launch its assault. Helicopter gunships and tanks pounded the headquarters for hours, setting buildings afire and punching holes in the red-tiled roofs.

Because of Rajoub’s status, Israeli officials were reported to be divided over how far the attack should reach.

“If you destroy the only effective security agency in the West Bank and make sure that you have no partner in the future, then what do you have?” asked one diplomat.

Rajoub is seen as a protege of the CIA, favored by Americans and many Israelis. That status does not serve him well at home, however. He is generally reviled among Palestinians, who see him as a traitor.

Rajoub, who was not inside the compound when Tuesday’s assault began, said later that about 30 members of radical Islamic groups were in his prison. But he had to free them when Israel’s army arrived, he said, and they were fighting alongside the other men caught in the security compound.

But Israeli radio insisted late Tuesday that dozens of militants remained inside the compound. The Islamic militant Hamas group said seven prisoners--six of its own men and one member of the Islamic Jihad group--had not been heard from. In a harshly worded statement, Hamas said it was holding Rajoub responsible for their safety.

A cold rain fell on much of the West Bank on Tuesday, adding gloom to hardships inflicted by the fighting. In Ramallah, Palestinians buried 17 of their dead in a hospital parking lot because their families had been unable to claim the bodies until Tuesday, which were decomposing in a hospital morgue because of power outages.

The Israeli offensive also provoked new international opposition Tuesday, especially after fighting reached the Church of the Nativity and other Christian churches in Bethlehem where militants sought refuge. In an appeal to President Bush, leaders of Christian denominations in the region asked him to restrain the Israelis and help “stop this inhuman tragedy immediately.”

Spain, in the name of the European Union, demanded that Israel withdraw from Palestinian cities, in line with a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted Saturday, and restore Arafat’s freedom of movement.

But Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said the military offensive would last three to four weeks, the first estimated time frame offered by a senior official.

Since the offensive began, Israeli troops have kept Arafat confined to his Ramallah compound, now ringed by barbed wire. While Israeli officials insist that their intention is to “isolate” Arafat, rather than arrest or harm him, Sharon raised the possibility Tuesday of banishing him into exile.

The prime minister told reporters that he had advised European Union envoy Miguel Angel Moratinos that European diplomats could “fly with a helicopter and . . . take [Arafat] from here” but that “it would have to be a one-way ticket.”

Arafat’s expulsion was, in fact, considered last week by Israel’s Cabinet, but Sharon backed away from the idea to avoid a conflict with his Labor Party coalition partners, according to Israeli media accounts. The Cabinet decided to confine Arafat to a few rooms at his headquarters but left open the option of ousting him later.

In any case, Arafat has insisted he won’t go, and foreign leaders voiced renewed opposition to the idea.

“Sending him into exile will just give him another place from which to conduct the same kinds of activities and give the same messages as he is giving now,” Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said. Powell advised Sharon to “take care” in his offensive because Arafat has an important role to play in the search for peace.

Having declared Arafat an “enemy” of an Israel now “at war,” Israeli officials say they cannot envision turning to him as a peacemaker.

“We clearly have a problem,” Dore Gold, Sharon’s foreign policy advisor, told reporters Sunday. “Israel has no interest in dismantling the Palestinian Authority. Israel has no interest in ruling the Palestinian territories. But we need to isolate those elements of the Palestinian Authority that are involved in terrorism.

“Arafat’s role is clear. We say he’s the enemy and he should be isolated,” Gold added. “Where do we go from here? We’ll see once our military operations are finished.”

*

Wilkinson reported from Ramallah and Boudreaux from Jerusalem.