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Posted on 09/10/2001 8:36:30 PM PDT by kattracks
JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli tanks rolled toward Palestinian-ruled Jenin under the cover of darkness early on Tuesday, Palestinian security officials said, two days after a suicide bomber who Israel believes was recruited in the West Bank city killed three Israelis.
The Israeli army declined to comment on the reported operation and there was no independent confirmation that the armored force had actually entered the city.
Calls rang out from loudspeakers on minarets in Jenin for Palestinians to confront the Israelis. Heavy gunfire could be heard but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
Residents said electrical power went out in Jenin soon after the tanks began to roll.
Israel Radio's military affairs correspondent, who is briefed regularly by the army, said the Israeli armored force had moved into Palestinian-ruled territory on the outskirts of Jenin with the aim of encircling but not entering the city.
She reported that Israeli forces would take up positions around Jenin and block Palestinians from entering or leaving.
An invasion of Jenin would almost certainly wreck the immediate prospects for planned truce talks between Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (news - web sites).
Israeli forces last entered the city on August 14 for a three-hour operation in which they demolished a police headquarters.
In another part of the West Bank early on Tuesday, near the Palestinian-ruled city of Tulkarm, Palestinian gunmen shot dead two Israelis in a roadside ambush, Israel Radio said.
EU BROKERING TALKS
Late on Monday, as Israeli tanks gathered outside Jenin, a European Union (news - web sites) envoy, Miguel Moratinos, shuttled between Arafat and Peres to try to set a time and place for their meeting.
Israeli political sources said the Erez checkpoint between Israel and the Gaza Strip (news - web sites) was Israel's favored location for the talks on a implementing a cease-fire brokered by the United States in June, but which never took hold.
Nabil Abu Rdainah, an aide to Arafat, denied a meeting would be held at the Erez border point. He said the Palestinians wanted it to take place in Egypt. Israel Radio said Israeli leaders rejected any Egyptian venue.
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Palestinian military sources said late on Monday they feared an Israeli strike on Jenin after witnesses reported at least 42 tanks moving on the outskirts of the West Bank city.
Israel says Jenin, in the northern West Bank, is a recruitment center for suicide bombers, including one -- believed to be an Israeli Arab -- who killed himself and three Israelis in the northern city of Nahariya on Sunday.
Shortly afterwards another suicide bomber blew himself up in a car in central Israel, wounding some 10 people.
An Israeli kindergarten teacher and driver also died in an ambush on a car shuttling teachers to a school in a Jewish West Bank settlement.
Israel hit back swiftly, using helicopters and tanks to blast six Palestinian security positions. A Palestinian security officer was killed and four wounded in one of the strikes, on a checkpoint in the northern West Bank early on Monday.
PERES WANTS PRIVATE TALKS
Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem, Peres said Israel would like his talks with Arafat to be held in a place where there is ''less media presence...(and) where the two partners will feel equally free.''
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he had been working on the telephone since Sunday's violence to see if the planned talks were still possible.
``I still have some hope that it can take place in the next few days,'' Solana told the Spanish radio station Onda Cero on Monday. ``The situation is very serious and is getting worse.''
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) has limited his foreign minister's mandate to talks on achieving a cease-fire as a first step toward implementing a truce-to-talks plan charted by a committee led by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell.
Some 559 Palestinians and 165 Israelis have been killed since the uprising erupted last year after peace talks stalled.
Don't invade the place ... wreck it! With all those tanks, it would be possible to fire a few HEAP rounds, then follow up with my old favorite, Willy Pete. And if any terrorists started running about, there's always a flechette round or three. Granted, it can be hard to spot a terrorist, and there may be some collateral damage...but one must do what is required to make one's point.
Perhaps one could even adapt a song....
Hey, palie, que paso....
Hahaha. What a disreputable statement. I take it Wael al-Ahmad or whatever the heck name you parade under, that the killing of Israelis just previous to this didn't "almost certainly wreck" peace prospects?
WHAT is wrong with this man. I bet he's even worked out the lunch menu and hired the violinists too.
How about Antarctica?
BUMP
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