New Israeli blitz leaves 24 Palestinians dead ahead of US peace mission
( 2002-04-06 10:57 ) (7 )

Israeli attacks killed at least 24 Palestinans including a top militant leader on Friday, just days before a new US peace mission by Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Despite unusual pressure from Washington after President George W Bush said Israel must halt its military blitz and work toward peace, the Israelis pounded Palestinian targets and consolidated their grip on the West Bank.

Israeli officials shrugged off Bush's call to withdraw troops, made in a speech broadcast worldwide on Thursday amid global outrage over a siege that has seen Israel retake six of eight major Palestinian towns.

"Bush definitely asked for a withdrawal, but he did not say 'immediate' withdrawal," spokesman Gideon Meir said. He vowed any pullback would come "after having cleaned up the nest of terrorists."

In the biggest strike of the day, helicopter gunships unleashed a hail of missiles on a building in the West Bank village of Tubas, killing six members of the Islamic militant group Hamas inside, a Palestinian official said.

Among them was Qais Idwan, said to have masterminded the deaths of 26 people in a suicide attack last week now called the "Passover Massacre." Idwan was a top chief in the Hamas armed wing, the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades.

Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin had said earlier of a ceasefire"A 14-year-old Palestinian girl and a man were reported killed in Tubas during earlier fighting, while heavy battles around Nablus overnight left 14 Palestinians dead, according to Palestinian officials.

Speculation was rife in the Israeli press Friday that the army would step up the assault and tighten its clampdown on the Palestinians before Powell arrives with a mandate from Bush to try to stop the blooshed.

A US official said Powell would arrive in the region on Monday.

"The storms of violence cannot go on," Bush said, just days after saying he accepted Israel's right to defend itself against Palestinian atacks. "Enough is enough."

The United States gives Israel around three billion dollars a year in aid, most of it for the military, but the Jewish state has not hesitated in the past to dissent from its crucial backer.

The army has made a methodical town-by-town march through the West Bank, where Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has dreamed of carving out an independent Palestinian state, search house by house for militants.

Palestinian information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said Israeli troops searched his house Friday. An army spokesman said"Arafat won a diplomatic lifeline Friday when Israel opened the barricade around his headquarters to let US envoy Anthony Zinni meet him, but there were few details about the 90-minute talks. Troops threw stun grenades at journalists trying to get to the site.

Bush hinted in an interview that Arafat's time as a political force was winding down.

"My worry is that Yasser Arafat can't perform," he told ITV television. "He has let his people down, and there are others in the region who can lead."

Sharon said this week any release of Arafat from the siege on his headquarters would be a "one-way ticket" to permanent exile.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Thursday that any idea of eliminating Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, as a way to guarantee peace, would be "a miscalculation of monumental proportions."

Powell was expected to see Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, Jordan's King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, as well as Sharon on his tour, but it was unclear if he would meet Arafat.

"With respect to Palestinian leadership, we're still working out who (Powell) will see and at what level," a US official said.

Elsewhere, explosions and gunfire were heard coming from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where Palestinian gunmen holed up for a third day ignored calls from the Israeli army besieging the compound to come out.

Four priests inside were evacuated for medical emergencies but otherwise the standoff continued. Hundreds of people were reportedly arrested in the Bethlehem area, including a senior Palestinian intelligence officer.

Anger and violence on the streets in Arab capitals, and the threat to US interests worldwide as Washington tries to hold together its own anti-terror coalition, have followed the Israeli military drive.

Israel has declared closed military areas in many areas, making it impossible to confirm claims by Palestinian officials of more than 100 dead in a week, but large parts of the West Bank have been devastated.

Two more Palestinians were reported dead in Jenin, one of the re-taken towns, where the Israeli army said one of its soldiers was also killed.

A Palestinian official said two Palestinians were also killed in the Gaza Strip, one accidentally and another who blew himself up amid a group of Israeli soldiers. Israel said it was unaware of any such incidents.

Witnesses also said three Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel were shot dead in Tubas after being removed from a prison by Palestinian gunmen during an Israeli tank incursion in the village north of Nablus.

Other accounts said Israeli helicopter gunships were also firing on Hebron, wounding 11, according to hospital sources.

The Israelis say they have rounded up more than 1,100 Palestinians. Only Hebron and Jericho remain in Palestinian hands.

Nearly 1,750 people have died, most of them Palestinians, since the beginning of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000.

There have been fears of a second front in the conflict after several cross-border attacks from Lebanon in the past few days.

Israeli air and ground forces hit southern Lebanon on Friday, wounding two civilians, after Hezbollah guerrillas attacked Israeli army posts in the disputed Shebaa Farms border area, police said.