Much of the Palestinian Authority compound was ground into dust and ruin Friday as the Israeli military, acting after two days of suicide bombings, bore down with bulldozers and gunfire on the headquarters of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Arafat and dozens of advisers were trapped for a second night as Israeli troops pursued a destructive show of supremacy in the West Bank city of Ramallah. By midnight, only one building–housing Arafat’s presidential offices–appeared to be standing and functional in the once large hilltop compound. Even it was damaged.
The Israeli military said about 20 structures and security trailers in the presidential compound were demolished, some disappearing in great clouds of smoke during the day as troops dynamited buildings already crumpled by incursions this spring. Troops then dug trenches around Arafat’s offices.
By late Friday night, Israeli troops had pummeled an enclosed walkway between the only two buildings still left functioning. The assault toppled one building and essentially stranded Arafat and dozens of advisers and security guards in a smaller, adjacent one.
Within minutes of that action, a number of men, dressed in civilian clothes, were seen leaving the heavily damaged building with their hands raised. Palestinians inside the compound said Israeli soldiers then entered the building. Explosions and the roar of bulldozers soon followed, they said.
Palestinians inside the remaining building, reached by phone, said the captured men were security officers.
The robust Israeli assault continued despite urging from the Bush administration for Israel to show restraint in response to suicide bombings that killed nine people. Israel’s reaction was the most aggressive since June.
An Israeli police officer was killed in Wednesday’s bombing at a bus stop at Umm al-Fahm junction in northern Israel, and the death toll in Thursday’s bombing of a bus in Tel Aviv rose to seven as a Scottish teenager died of his injuries.
On Friday night, Israeli officials said they presented the Palestinians with a list of 19 men the Israelis identified as terrorists, insisting they were in the compound and must be surrendered.
A senior military commander said Arafat’s compound had been “protected” in the past but “as of yesterday [Thursday], this place will no longer be protected.”
He would not say whether the army had any plans to enter Arafat’s own building but he added, “If you see that negotiations are not bearing fruit, forced entry is one option.”
Arafat has been isolated in his compound since December after an increase in suicide bombings across Israel. In March and then in June, the Palestinian compound came under siege.
The Israeli military has kept much of the West Bank under its control since the spring, and this week’s two suicide bombings prompted Israel to reimpose lockdowns in most major West Bank cities.
Not after Arafat, Israel says
The government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon indicated Thursday that it did not plan to go after Arafat himself. But Friday night, it appeared that the Israelis would spare little else in their response to the suicide bombings.
“We’re under attack. The bulldozers are very close. They are breaking the building apart. I can hear people screaming,” said former Finance Minister Salem Fayyad, speaking by cell phone from Arafat’s main offices during the assault on the walkway.
Other advisers, reached by phone in abbreviated interviews, described the scene as “chaotic and very dangerous.”
“The Israelis are not just endangering the Palestinians. They are endangering the whole peace process,” Arafat adviser Nabil Abu Rudeineh said.
An Arafat bodyguard was felled by a single bullet to the head Friday morning just after a loud explosion at the compound rattled the building where Arafat and his advisers were sleeping.
Advisers said they raced down the stairs after the blast, which battered a nearby building, and came upon the body of Mohammed Hamoud, who had been hit as he moved along an exposed area of the stairwell. Hours later, the Israeli military allowed an ambulance to enter and remove the body.
Much of Ramallah remained shuttered by a military lockdown Friday.
Arafat reportedly was so angered as buildings tumbled that he grabbed a small machine gun and was restrained only by the insistence of his advisers. Some advisers, reached by phone, later disputed that account.
“It’s become a parking lot here,” adviser Abu Rudeineh said, reached by phone as night fell. “It’s an army that is acting like a bunch of gangsters. They have to beat something even if it’s some empty buildings.”
Abu Rudeineh said Arafat was consulting, directly by phone Friday, with top Arab world leaders, including Saudi officials and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Arafat said he was assured, according to Abu Rudeineh, that “they were doing their best to help the situation.”
Another deadly bombing
The Israelis launched the wholesale destruction Thursday, hours after a deadly suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, the second in two days in Israel. Arafat, his advisers and some university professors were meeting in the presidential office as the assault began.
The university professors, inside the compound to discuss election reforms, were allowed to leave early Friday, according to one Palestinian adviser. The Israeli government that night presented the list of 19 people inside the compound deemed to be terrorists, and demanded their surrender.
The Israelis, through negotiators, indicated to the Palestinians that the men were wanted for terrorist acts. Among the names were Tafiq El Tarawi, the head of intelligence services in the West Bank, and Mohammed Dummra, the head of Arafat’s personal protection unit, Force 17.
Friday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel underscored that the siege would continue unless those who were wanted surrendered.
“Arafat is not the problem . . . we are demanding the surrender of those people responsible for terror attacks,” Mekel told reporters. He said the army was attacking Ramallah and the compound because it was the “nerve center of terrorism.”
The demand for the “wanted men” men essentially was ignored by the Palestinians. Abu Rudeineh and other ministers said Friday that there had been no direct demand for such a surrender and they balked at the idea that top security officials were directing terror assaults against Israel.
But other sources indicated that Western diplomats had “been communicating between” the Israelis and Palestinians and a list of names had been exchanged.
Keeping up pressure
“We intend to keep up the pressure so that all [the wanted men] come out,” Israeli Defense Minister Ben Eliezer said on Army Radio. “As for the chairman [Arafat], we have no intention of exiling him or using firepower against him.”
Still, there was much confusion over the demand. It was unclear Friday night whether the two sides were communicating clearly over the issue.
The siege of Ramallah was the focus of an intense and violent day between Israelis and Palestinians. Five Israelis had initially died in the bus bombing Thursday.
60 people wounded
By Friday evening, a sixth victim, a Scottish teenager, succumbed to his injuries. As many as 60 people were wounded in the assault that the militant group Hamas praised and apparently took responsibility for.
In Gaza, three civilians were killed in Israeli incursions and clashes. Near the town of Rafah, in southern Gaza and on the Egyptian border, two soldiers were injured when an explosion hit their armored personnel vehicle.
News accounts reported that soldiers attempting to rescue the vehicle were attacked by stone-throwers and armed Palestinians.
The soldiers shot back at the gunmen, killing a 15-year-old boy and wounding nine other people, Palestinian sources said.
