y JOEL BRINKLEYPosted on 04/13/2002 11:56:46 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
y JOEL BRINKLEY
RAMALLAH, West Bank, April 13 — The commander of Israeli forces in central Ramallah said today that he is trying to relax the siege on Yasir Arafat's compound here, "at least for the time being."
During a quick tour of the site with a military escort this afternoon, the atmosphere appeared calm, although an armored cordon remained.
"It has been so sensitive and tense that we have stepped back a little bit," said Col. Uzi Moskowitz, who commands Israeli forces in the most important parts of this city. "There was just too much friction, and shooting."
He took two reporters on a tour of Bethlehem today in armored military jeeps, the first such tour the army has offered. "I have nothing to hide," the colonel said.
Mr. Arafat has been under siege for two weeks now. On Sunday he is to meet with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, plans that may have affected the Israeli military's attitude. Tanks still ringed the building this afternoon.
Colonel Moskowitz, pointing to the building with Mr. Arafat's office, said: "They are in there. We control everything else." A hole 15 feet wide had been knocked out of one wall near ground level. But over the compound, a Palestinian flag still fluttered.
On the first day of the military's attack on the compound, army bulldozers knocked down portions of the high wall surrounding it. Now, these openings have been closed with piles of dirt and overturned cars apparently plucked from the street. Israeli tanks routinely crush Palestinian cars that are in the way.
Across the city, tanks and armored personnel carriers roamed at will today, and not a Palestinian was seen on the street. At various points around town, large concentrations of tanks and armored personnel carriers were parked.
Colonel Moskowitz said the armor was protecting the offices that the army had expropriated from business owners to use as command centers. From those command centers, about 15 of them around the city, troops fan out across their territory and conduct searches of homes, businesses and government offices. The colonel said the army has searched between 60 and 70 percent of Ramallah's several thousand homes.
"I would like to search as many houses and apartments as we can while we are here," he said. "These are very thorough, very profound searches."
The army is paying special attention to Palestinian Authority offices, taking away computer hard drives and boxes of papers that are still being analyzed. And the intelligence agencies still have not finished analyzing the boxes of material seized in Mr. Arafat's office.
Colonel Moskowitz showed several photographs seized in that office showing a Palestinian Authority official posing with several members of his family. One shot showed a 1-year-old boy with a Kalashnikov rifle laid across his lap. Another showed the mother with two young children, maybe 3 and 5 years old, on each arm, smiling as all of them had a hand on the automatic rifle.
The colonel shook his head and said: "I just don't understand this. It's a national psychosis."
The army has arrested 700 people in Ramallah and has released all but 200 of them. Among them, the colonel said, are several "senior terrorists" who had been on Israel's most wanted list.
In virtually every case, the army said, the men were seized in their homes, unlike the last incursion in March, when the army entered few homes.
Palestinians say the Israelis are ransacking their houses. Colonel Moskowitz is unapologetic. "This is a city of war," he declared. "This is a city of occupation, by us." He described some of the recent suicide bombings — 132 Israelis have been killed in these attacks since March 1 — and said, "Enough is enough; that is our feeling."
One such military command center was in Manara Square, the center of town, in a building whose storefronts included the Carma Cyber Club and Eve's Jewelry. There was little visible damage to any of the shops or businesses there. But a huge poster of Yasir Arafat that hangs over the main street had been defaced with a balloon coming from Mr. Arafat's mouth, and blue Hebrew lettering inside that said: " `Mommy, mommy, run away.' The point company is coming."
Around the square, as in much of Ramallah, posters are plastered on every wall extolling suicide bombers as heroes and martyrs, as they have been for months. Israeli troops standing in the square today looked up at them with contempt.
The army has discovered caches of weapons and explosives during some of the searches, officers said. One was found in a mosque, at the base of the minaret, and caught on an army video, officers said. Colonel Moskowitz also said they discovered the office of a woman he identified as Fatmah Barnowi, whose job was to recruit female police officers.
But in fact, the colonel said, she was recruiting female suicide bombers. According to a list that she kept and has been seized by the Israelis, "several dozen" young women had signed up, he said. Israel's internal security service, the Shin Bet, is now looking for those women.
The entire city is under curfew; no one is allowed to leave his or her house. But the army lifts the curfew for five hours every Monday and Thursday. Colonel Moskowitz said he worries that Palestinians shift people and material around during those times, taking contraband from houses that have been not been searched and shifting it to other houses that have.
The colonel is under no illusions that the military campaign will end the suicide bombings and other acts, although it may reduce them temporarily, he said.
"Terrorism comes from the hearts of people, from the emotions and feelings of people," he said. "The problem cannot be solved with military action. But there is also a mechanism: trainers, recruiters, indoctrinators, people who obtain the explosives. We can disrupt that, for a while."
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