First the tanks and armored bulldozers punched holes in the tall brick perimeter walls that shielded Yasser Arafat’s headquarters and sanctuary.
Then they smashed through the metal gates on three sides of the compound, which takes up a city block. The black iron door that once glided open for visiting dignitaries lay askew in the debris.
After they gained entry, the tanks and armored personnel carriers roared into the Palestinian Authority president’s parking lot and across his helipad, homing in on three buildings that were the heart of the headquarters.
Arafat’s offices, where he has been confined for more than three months, were in the middle building.
The building to the east was the intelligence division, where the Israeli forces opened a garage-size hole in the facade and then strafed it with sustained heavy-caliber tank-mounted machine guns.
The building to the west was the governor’s offices. There, too, troops opened a gap and blew a metal door off its hinges. Inside, they shot through each room and tossed stun grenades for good measure.
They also smashed the snack bar. A soft-drink vending machine and an ice cream stand poked up from the rubble.
The region’s most powerful army was a well-armed wrecking crew Friday.
Piece by piece, Israeli forces were dismantling the Palestinian leader’s headquarters, his power base. With it, the army of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was symbolically dismantling Arafat’s mystique as the ultimate survivor. He was no longer in charge but utterly besieged, trapped in a couple of rooms, surrounded by the enemy.
Sharon said Friday that his forces were dismantling the “terror infrastructure” that Arafat built and operated out of his headquarters, after the Palestinian leader failed to stop a deadly wave of suicide bombings and gun attacks.
Throughout much of Friday, the Israelis pounded the headquarters with stun grenades–more for psychological effect than damage–and fought sporadic gun battles with Arafat’s guards. They shelled the intelligence office, and snipers were posted in spots.
A mighty Merkava tank belching black smoke pulled up and parked in the driveway on the western side of the compound, a few yards from Arafat’s office. It swiveled and bobbed its turret, returning always to its main target, the heart of the compound.
Going room to room
Two armored personnel carriers roared past the tank, stopped at the hole in the wall of the governor’s offices, opened their hatches and disgorged their troops. The men conducted room-to-room searches for weapons and suspects.
Infantry on the eastern flank also entered the intelligence building. Arafat was essentially caught in a pincers movement, with soldiers inching toward him from two sides.
“Probably they will reach him in the end,” a Palestinian security official said.
Arafat used the time to grant one interview after another to Arabic-language television stations and to call several foreign leaders to appeal for help.
The facade of the intelligence building was splattered with copper-colored scorch marks. The air was full of grayish dust from the debris, patted down periodically by a cold rain.
Israeli Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Eitan, head of the Central Command that oversees the West Bank, said his forces had seized control of the compound, except the floor of the building where Arafat was situated.
Familiar with building
Israel has intimate familiarity with Arafat’s building. The three-story structure served as an Israeli military base until 1995, when Israel withdrew from Ramallah as part of the landmark Oslo accords. The bottom floor has guard rooms; the middle floor houses Arafat’s office, dining room and sleeping quarters; and the top has more offices.
Part of it was built originally as a prison during the British Mandate period.
Fighting subsided by nightfall Friday, but between 2 and 3 a.m. Saturday steady bursts of machine-gun fire and a huge explosion could be heard emanating from the compound.
Beyond it, most of Ramallah was a ghost town Friday. Stores and offices were shut tight, and few people, except for gunmen, ventured outside their homes.
The other activity was of military equipment, as dozens of tanks and other armored vehicles were seen moving through the city.
