Israeli Attacks Persist Despite Call for Pullout

NABLUS, West Bank —  Israeli troops and helicopters hammered away Sunday at determined but weakening Palestinian resistance in Nablus and in the Jenin refugee camp, the prime remaining targets of an Israeli military under international pressure to curtail its West Bank offensive.

Officials on both sides of the conflict reported that Israeli forces had gained ground, and a senior Israeli general predicted that the assault on the two strongholds could wind down as soon as today.

At least 30 Palestinians have been killed in house-to-house combat here in the last two days, including a legendary chief who fell Sunday as his forces retreated in a warren of underground tunnels and winding alleys.

And in a troubling development at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, a fire broke out early today on the second floor of the parish building of the Catholic monastery adjacent to the besieged church, which is occupied by more than 140 Palestinian gunmen and civilians.

Israeli gunfire killed a Palestinian policeman in the incident, according to a priest and a Palestinian official inside the historic site revered as Jesus’ birthplace. Two Israeli soldiers were wounded in the exchange of fire with the Palestinians, according to Israeli officials.

At Israel’s northern border, Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon unleashed another barrage of mortar and antitank fire into Israel, wounding six Israeli soldiers. That elicited a counterattack with artillery and rockets and an Israeli warning to Syria, which supports the guerrillas and permits their activity in Lebanon.

And on the increasingly sensitive political front, Israeli leaders defended their West Bank incursion a day after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rebuffed President Bush’s call for Israel to withdraw from Palestinian territories without delay.

“This is a fateful battle,” Sharon said at a Cabinet meeting Sunday, “a war for our homes.”

But Sharon and his top aides sent conciliatory signals as well, saying they hope to finish the operation soon. Israeli leaders hinted that pullbacks could occur in calmer areas and announced the temporary lifting of curfews in cities including Ramallah, the site of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s battered headquarters, and the town of Jenin near the embattled refugee camp.

“Our time is running out” because of Bush administration requests and this week’s diplomatic mission by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Defense Minister Bin-yamin Ben-Eliezer told Israeli radio. “But we will not pull out only to return soon.”

The military cannot move more quickly, Israeli leaders argued, because it must uproot the infrastructure of terrorist groups while refraining from aerial and artillery bombardments to minimize civilian casualties. Israeli defense officials warned that an abrupt withdrawal--as demanded by European and Arab governments--could result in another calamitous round of Palestinian terrorism and Israeli retaliation.

“Now everybody wants us to get out of the territories,” said Maj. Gen. Dan Harel, operations chief of the Israeli army, expressing reluctance to leave a mission unfinished. “If we do it too soon, another wave of terror will hit Israeli cities and streets. And we’ll go back in again. Paradoxically, if we stay in we can do more to put an end to terrorism.”

The crackdown has been a success, Harel said, noting that intelligence reports of suicide bomb plots in Palestinian territory have dropped dramatically. After near-daily suicide attacks killed 128 Israelis in March, a week has gone by without a major suicide bombing.

Since the offensive was unleashed March 29, about 12 Israelis and 200 Palestinians have died in the hostilities, Harel told reporters. About 1,300 Palestinians have been detained by the Israelis, who have identified 500 to 600 prisoners involved in terrorism and 60 to 70 hard-core terrorists, he said. Israeli forces say they have also dismantled more than 10 labs dedicated to preparing terrorist explosives.

Palestinians say civilians have been undeserving victims of the violence and destruction. Their plight caused the foreign ministers of Spain and Belgium to warn Sunday that the European Union will consider sanctions if the Sharon government does not relent.

Discussions of a cease-fire seemed fanciful, though, amid the blood and hate in war zones such as Nablus, the biggest and most militant West Bank city, where close-quarters combat felled three Palestinian leaders Sunday.

Ahmad Tabouk died about noon in the casbah, the old market area where he was undisputed top dog. Tabouk commanded his own armed militant group after years as a feared chieftain of the Fatah movement during the first intifada in the late 1980s and early ‘90s.

Tabouk was cut down in the street during an exchange of fire with Israeli infantry. His body lay face down, clad in black jeans, sweatshirt and holster.

In a frenzy stoked by days of gunplay and nights without sleep, anguished fighters tried to retrieve Tabouk’s corpse. A gunman darted from a narrow lane toward his fallen leader as another shouted for protective fire: “Cover, cover!”

Before reaching Tabouk’s corpse, the fighter was hit and went down, blood pouring from his mouth and leg. His comrades dragged him away.

“Hurry up, hurry up!” yelled a Palestinian. “Give me something to carry him on. He’s alive, he’s alive!” Wearing black ski masks and green headbands, fighters fired from behind sandbags, pressed themselves against stone walls, sprinted through underground tunnels. A fighter crouched in a tunnel over a car battery with wires in his hands, ready to set off an explosive booby trap if the Israelis approached. In the windows of hillside homes, Palestinian women and children cheered on the men with shouts of “God is great!”

Residents of Nablus have spent five days huddled in their homes. A few terraced streets above the casbah, Ranin Henna, 23, gazed from her apartment building at smoke rising from the city and Apache helicopters swooping in.

“There’s no sleep,” said Henna, mother of a 2-month-old baby. Henna’s grandmother has run out of medication for her diabetes and high blood pressure. “It’s extraordinary, the sounds and the fighting. We are terrified. . . . At any time the Israelis can come into your home. They came in yesterday afternoon. They knocked on the door, searched the house and inspected the roof. They wanted to see if they could put a sniper up there.”

Two other leaders were killed in Nablus as the Israelis pressed forward, their generals predicting they would soon dominate most of the casbah. Palestinian legislator Hussam Khader remained defiant, though.

“No matter what Sharon does, he will never be able to kill the spirit of the Palestinians,” Khader said in a telephone interview. “The resistance will still continue.”

Resistance turned self-destructively desperate in the Jenin camp, where five Palestinians approached Israeli soldiers offering to surrender then attempted a suicide bomb attack. The five were gunned down, and one was blown up as the explosives strapped to him went off, army officials said. There were no Israeli casualties.

The death toll in the refugee camp is close to 100, according to Palestinian sources. Fighters were being pushed into the center of the camp amid helicopter barrages but were determined to fight to the death, said Jamal Shati, another Palestinian legislator.

“It’s a real war of annihilation,” Shati said.

In Bethlehem, the incident at the church raised tensions, but the fire apparently was put out. There were differing versions of the deadly incident, which took place close to dawn.

An Israeli military source said Palestinian gunmen fired from the Church of the Nativity and adjacent St. Catherine’s Church on Israeli soldiers in two rooftop posts outside the compound. Gunfire and grenades wounded two Israeli soldiers, who are believed to be in serious condition, and troops returned fire, the military source said.

Palestinians speaking by phone from inside the compound identified the slain man as Khaled Siam, 23, a Palestinian Authority police officer. Gunfire could be heard in the background as an agitated Bethlehem Gov. Mohammed Madani called on his fellow Palestinians not to shoot.

At about 7 a.m., a Franciscan monk said by telephone that Israeli troops outside and Palestinian gunmen inside had allowed firefighters into the compound to put out the blaze in the parish building, an administrative annex of St. Catherine’s Church connected to the monastery. The cause of the fire was not clear.

Israeli soldiers were seen on the roof of the building that caught fire, Madani said. They retreated, apparently leaving behind three M-16 rifles that were recovered by Palestinian fighters, he said.

“The civil defense has been allowed inside,” the Rev. Ibrahim Faltas said by telephone from St. Catherine’s. “We call for an immediate investigation of what happened.”

The Israeli army did not comment on the allegation that troops entered the compound, but Israeli commanders say they are taking pains to protect the nearly 80 clerics and the church.

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Rotella reported from Jerusalem and Cole from Nablus.

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