- NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters)
- Dozens of Israeli tanks backed by helicopter gunships swept into the
West Bank city of Nablus Wednesday in a stepped-up military response to
a Palestinian attack that killed five Israelis on a kibbutz.
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- Witnesses said Israeli forces entered the Palestinian-ruled
city from four directions under cover of darkness, with tank-mounted machineguns
firing in the air as they advanced. There were no immediate reports of
casualties.
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- The large-scale incursion, which could further complicate
a new U.S. peace mission to the region, was launched just 24 hours after
Israel troops and armor raided the town of Tulkarm and an adjacent refugee
camp.
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- Israel had vowed tough retaliation for Sunday's shooting
spree at a nearby communal farm, Kibbutz Metzer, in northern Israel, where
the dead included a mother and her two young sons killed as they cowered
under their blankets.
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- The army said in a statement that it had commenced an
operation "against terrorist targets" in Nablus and its surrounding
refugee camps, as well as the town of Bir Zeit north of Ramallah.
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- It said troops had so far arrested 30 wanted militants,
mostly from the Islamic group Hamas, "due to the high number of warnings
and attempts to carry out attacks" against Israelis in a two-year-old
Palestinian uprising against occupation.
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- The Israeli army has held a tight grip on Nablus and
most other major West Bank cities following a wave of suicide bombings
last summer, but the reoccupation of Palestinian-ruled territory has so
far failed to put a complete stop to attacks.
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- Israeli security sources said Tulkarm and Nablus were
now being targeted because they had suspected links to Sunday's kibbutz
raid, which was claimed by an armed group linked to Palestinian President
Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.
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- Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, trying to
outflank Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on the right, vowed on Tuesday to
expel Arafat if he were elected prime minister.
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- The hawkish ex-premier, challenging Sharon to lead the
rightist Likud party in a January 28 election, turned a nationally televised
speech into his most scathing attack on Arafat since joining Israel's cabinet
last week after the collapse of a unity coalition.
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- "The first thing that must be done in the next government
is to expel this man," Netanyahu told a Likud convention in Tel Aviv.
"I as prime minister will expel Arafat...I think this is an essential
condition to wipe out terror."
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- Recent polls have given Sharon a commanding lead over
the center-left Labor Party for the general election and up to a 10-point
margin over Netanyahu for the party leadership in a primary set for November
28.
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- Netanyahu said Arafat was "head of the murderers"
behind the rare kibbutz attack. Arafat condemned the shooting. He has repeatedly
denied Israeli accusations of complicity in violence.
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- GAZA AIR STRIKE
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- Shortly before the incursion, an Israeli helicopter gunship
fired missiles into Gaza City, hitting a metal workshop which had been
badly damaged in a similar strike two days earlier.
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- An army spokesman said the strike was a "continuation
of our operation" against a site used to manufacture rockets and mortar
shells fired at Jewish settlements and Israeli towns. The owner of the
workshop had denied it was used to make arms.
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- The violence clouded a visit by U.S. envoy David Satterfield
to push a peace "roadmap." Most in the region believe the plan
will achieve little before Israel's election and before the smoke clears
on a potential U.S. war on Iraq.
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- Just before Netanyahu spoke, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi
Annan warned Israel against forcing Arafat out of the West Bank. "Many
governments around the world have indicated that it would be unwise to
exile Chairman Arafat, and I hope that will not happen," he told a
news conference in New York.
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- Sharon has promised Bush not to oust or harm Arafat.
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- Following Netanyahu to the podium, Sharon responded with
what was widely seen as veiled criticism of his rival. Israeli commentators
dubbed Sharon the victor of the exchange.
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- "We will fight terror and defeat it, but security
will not be achieved through slogans," Sharon said. "The Israeli
nation wants responsible leadership, leadership that acts with discretion."
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- Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat called Netanyahu's
threat "unacceptable" and urged Israelis to elect a leadership
"capable of making peace and not one that that will sustain the vicious
cycle of violence and bloodshed."
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- At least 1,655 Palestinians and 631 Israelis have been
killed since the revolt erupted in September 2000 after peace talks on
Palestinian statehood froze.
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