- JENIN, West Bank (Reuters)
- Hundreds of soldiers backed by scores of heavy military vehicles entered
the West Bank city of Jenin early on Friday as Israel retaliated for a
suicide car bombing that killed 14 Israelis earlier this week.
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- A senior Israeli commander said the operation, dubbed
"Vanguard," was aimed at rooting out some 20 militants in the
city of some 250,000.
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- He said it was the largest such operation since August,
when Israel responded to a Jerusalem university bombing that killed seven
by sending tanks into Nablus, killing three Palestinians.
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- "This operation is an outgrowth of this week's suicide
car bombing," said the commander. On Monday a Palestinian suicide
bomber killed 14 when he detonated explosives packed into a car next to
a bus on a road between Tel Aviv and Haifa.
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- Israel initially held back retaliation, apparently at
the request of the United States, which is seeking to avoid a flare-up
in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict out of concern it could jeopardize
Arab support for any strike in Iraq.
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- The raid into Jenin came just hours after U.S. envoy
William Burns met with Palestinian and Israeli officials in what seemed
to be an almost futile attempt to halt violence which has raged since the
Palestinian uprising for independence started in September 2000. He is
due to hold more talks on Friday.
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- "Our intelligence indicates that the bombing encouraged
the terrorist cell in Jenin, which is now rearming and winning new recruits,"
a senior Israeli commander told reporters.
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- Palestinian witnesses in the city said about 150 foot
soldiers had surrounded a home and were ramming the door. They reported
no exchange of gunfire.
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- The witnesses added that they expected the army to demolish
two homes in the area belonging to Islamic militants that Israel blames
for this week's bombing. The families have already evacuated those homes,
they said.
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- The army also took over dozens of houses, setting up
stake-outs to respond to any fire on military vehicles traveling on the
street, witnesses said. The owners and families of the homes were isolated
and could not immediately talk to reporters.
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- Just last week, Israel pulled its forces out of the center
of Jenin and lifted a curfew in response to what it said was relative quiet.
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- "Recently we eased off Jenin and got the bombing
in return," the senior Israeli commander said. "Given the new
developments we have to go in massively despite the attendant discomforts
to the locals."
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- He said the army intended to reimpose the curfew, conduct
widespread searches and set up stake-outs for the wanted militants.
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- EXPECTATIONS LOW FOR BURNS VISIT
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- Israeli troops moved into Jenin several hours after Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with Burns to discuss a U.S. proposed peace
plan in Jerusalem on Thursday evening.
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- Both Israelis and Palestinians voiced reservations about
the staged plan.
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- Israeli leaders said the plan, a "road map"
drafted by an international quartet of peacemakers, lacked security guarantees
while Palestinians said it needed timetables and enforcement mechanisms.
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- The plan envisages an end to violence, Palestinian reforms
and Israeli army withdrawals from occupied cities, leading to a final settlement
and Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza by 2005.
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- Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer stressed in a statement
issued after his meeting with Burns "that Israel maintains its right
to defend itself and will not agree to limitations on that score by any
particular 'roadmap'."
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- Burns refused to see Palestinian President Yasser Arafat,
in keeping with U.S. policy to ostracize him because of Washington's view
he has not done enough to stop violence.
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- Instead, Burns, an assistant secretary of state, met
a senior delegation including Palestinian parliament speaker Ahmed Korei
and cabinet ministers.
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- Korei hinted afterwards the plan -- drafted by the "quartet"
of mediators from the United States, Russia, The European Union and the
United Nations -- was too vague to succeed.
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- "We need a real roadmap that will take us to the
last destination, a real Palestinian independent state that can live beside
Israel in peace," said Korei. (Additional reporting by Dan Williams)
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