JERUSALEM (REUTERS)–Israel looked set to step up a crackdown on Palestinian militants Monday after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised “an uncompromising war” to crush a “terror” campaign he said was directed by Yasser Arafat.
Sharon’s tough message in a televised address followed a day of escalating violence in which a suicide bomber killed 15 people and Arafat’s guards battled Israeli troops besieging the Palestinian president’s West Bank headquarters in Ramallah.
Violence raged on despite an Easter Sunday appeal for peace by Pope John Paul and a call by the United Nations for Israel to withdraw its troops from Ramallah and other West Bank cities.
The spate of suicide bombings and the confrontation in Ramallah fanned fears of bloodier clashes after 18 months of violence in the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
“Citizens of Israel: the state of Israel is at war, a war against terror,” Sharon said in a televised address Sunday.
“We must fight this terrorism in an uncompromising war to uproot these savages, to dismantle their infrastructure, because there is no compromise with terrorists,” Sharon continued.
“This terrorism is activated, coordinated and directed by one man … Yasser Arafat,” he said, calling Arafat “the enemy of the free world.”
Arafat has been under siege since the Israeli government declared him an “enemy” Friday and sent tanks to his headquarters, saying it intended to isolate him after a series of Palestinian suicide bombings against Israelis.
ISRAEL TIGHTENS RING
Arafat remained defiant Sunday as Israeli troops battled his guards and tightened their ring round his headquarters.
Witnesses said at least two people were killed and six of Arafat’s guards wounded in Ramallah. Scores of Palestinians were arrested in the city.
Late Sunday, about 100 Israeli tanks and other armored vehicles thrust into the West Bank town of Qalqilya and took it over, Palestinian sources and residents said.
They said troops cut off the town’s electricity and water supplies before they moved in. Residents said they could hear explosions from occasional shelling and heavy machinegun fire.
Along with tough words, Sharon said a cease-fire would be possible once the campaign against the Palestinians had been completed.
In an interview for broadcast on CBS TV’s “60 Minutes,” Sharon also said he would take part if the United States called a Middle East peace meeting with Arab leaders.
Leading Palestinians rejected Sharon’s comments.
“This is Sharon’s style, nothing new and nothing surprising. But by claiming he will extend his hand for peace after he completes his mission, Sharon is only making a silly joke,” said Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo.
Sharon spoke after further deadly attacks by Palestinian suicide bombers Sunday, bringing the number of such attacks to five since the Jewish Passover holiday began last Wednesday.
Fifteen people eating at a restaurant run by Israeli Arabs in the northern port city of Haifa were killed and 40 people wounded when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up. The blast tore off the roof and spewed debris over a car park.
SECOND ATTACK
Paul Drimmer, a 52-year-old manager injured in the blast, said the wave of bombings had to stop. “I don’t know how to stop it, but it must be stopped, whatever it costs,” he said.
The Palestinian Islamic militant group Hamas said a 22-year-old resident of a refugee camp in the northern West Bank town of Jenin carried out the attack on its behalf to avenge the Israeli attacks on Ramallah and elsewhere.
A second suicide attack wounded six people at a Jewish settlement in the West Bank.
With world attention focused on the besieged Arafat, elite Israeli soldiers went house to house in the twin towns of Ramallah and al-Bireh, searching for Palestinian militants.
“They entered the house pointing their rifles at us,” said Leila al-Jdaili, 40, standing in a ransacked apartment.
In one building, the bullet-riddled bodies of two young Palestinian men lay in a pool of blood in the stairwell. They were shot by Israeli snipers, local residents said.
The Israeli army declared Ramallah a closed military zone and said non-residents, including foreign journalists, would be removed by force if necessary.
The pope’s Easter appeal for peace fell on deaf ears. “It seems that war has been declared on peace,” he said in his message, calling for an end to the “dramatic spiral of abuse of power and killings that bloody the Holy Land.”
