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`Aren't you ashamed of yourselves?' Arafat asks Israelis

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat told Israelis yesterday they should be ashamed of themselves for wanting him dead and appealed to them to help restore a shattered ceasefire.

Israeli Cabinet minister Danny Naveh dismissed Arafat's comments in Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's largest-circulation daily, as part of a "campaign of lies."

Just hours earlier, Israeli forces killed a senior Hamas militant in a gun battle in a Gaza Strip refugee camp. Frequent tit-for-tat violence has derailed a US-backed peace plan.

Arafat has launched a media offensive with a rapid-fire series of interviews in response to Israel's decision to "remove" him after suicide bombings killed 15 people last week. The threat has touched off an international outcry and boosted his grassroots support.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourselves?" Arafat told Israelis in remarks to Yedioth, referring to a recent poll in the newspaper that found 37 percent of Israelis favored killing him and 23 percent wanted him exiled.

Arafat, the symbol of Palestinian nationalism, pointed out it was he who signed interim peace accords with Israel in 1993.

But Israel's right-wing government has accused Arafat of fomenting violence during an uprising for independence that began in September 2000, an allegation he denies.

Arafat called on Israel to halt its military crackdown to help re-establish a ceasefire that militants broke off last month after Israel killed a Hamas leader in Gaza. The assassination followed a bus bombing in Jerusalem that killed 23 people.

"Stop the raids, assassinations and house demolitions," he said. Arafat said he had received a "positive response" from Hamas and other militant groups to his entreaties, but militant leaders said they were unaware of any fresh contacts.

Striking a more defiant tone, Arafat said on Wednesday he would be ready to fight to the death if Israel tried to expel or kill him.

Arafat pointed to his machinegun lying on the floor of his headquarters, half-demolished during an Israeli siege last year.

"I am a Palestinian soldier ... I will use my gun to defend not only myself but also defend every Palestinian child, woman and man and to defend the Palestinian existence," the 74-year-old former guerrilla leader said.

Israel has not said how or when it would act against Arafat.

The US, though pressuring Israel to refrain from carrying out its decision, vetoed a UN Security Council resolution demanding Israel not act against Arafat, saying it lacked references to suicide bombings in Israel.

Arafat shrugged off the veto, saying it is "not the first veto against the Palestinians and will not be the last." But other Palestinian officials said they feared Israel could see the US move as a licence to kill Arafat.

Early yesterday, Israeli soldiers shot dead Jihad Abu Swerah, 34, a senior member of Hamas' armed wing, when they came under grenade and automatic weapons attack during a raid in the Nusseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

The fighting was the heaviest in the Gaza Strip in months.

Israeli officials said troops went to arrest the militant after receiving intelligence that he was about to launch an attack.
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