Israel invaded Bethlehem and other West Bank towns yesterday as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon offered Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat a "one-way ticket" out of his besieged headquarters.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat immediately dismissed the offer, saying Arafat, who has sworn to "die a martyr" rather than bow to Israel, would never accept exile from his homeland.
"Arafat said there is not a single Palestinian who will accept going into exile under any circumstances," he said.
PHOTO: AFP
He said that Sharon's intention was to kill Arafat, who is holed up in his headquarters in Ramallah, despite Israel's repeated assurances to the contrary.
Israel sent tanks to Ramallah on Friday in what it said was a bid to halt a wave of suicide attacks. Palestinians say the aim of Israel's military campaign is to block their goal of an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In Bethlehem, outgunned Palestinians fought desperately to keep Israeli troops out of Manger Square after tanks and armored vehicles pushed into the biblical town near Jerusalem overnight.
Witnesses said helicopter gunships fired into the square, near the Church of Nativity, after a Palestinian fighter damaged a tank with a grenade.
Nearby, there was a heavy exchange of fire outside the Santa Maria Convent run by the Salesians, a Roman Catholic order. Church officials denied a report by the Rome-based missionary news service Misna that a 65-year-old Italian priest, Jacques Amateis, was killed in the convent. He is well, they said.
Witnesses said an 80-year-old Palestinian man was shot dead outside his house. A woman and her son were critically wounded.
Majdi Benoura, 30, a Palestinian cameraman, was wounded in the neck, colleagues said.
Sharon said he had told world leaders worried about Arafat's plight that they could pluck him from Ramallah by helicopter.
"First of all, I would have to first bring it to the Cabinet -- it should be approved. Second, he could not take anyone with him because there are wanted [people] and murderers around him there," Sharon told reporters at a West Bank army base.
"And the third thing is it has got to be one-way ticket. He would not be able to return," he said in televised footage.
Under pressure from Arab and European leaders to take the lead in defusing the conflict, US President George W. Bush defended his approach and urged Arafat to condemn suicide bombings.
The UN Security Council on Saturday called on Israel to leave Ramallah and other West Bank towns, but the White House appears to back Israel's line that a ceasefire must come first.
Israel has refused to let envoys from the UN, US, Russia and the EU visit Arafat in Ramallah, a spokesman for EU envoy Miguel Moratinos said.
"Yesterday we requested a visit to Ramallah. Mr. Zinni put in a request on behalf of the quartet," the spokesman said, referring to the US envoy Anthony Zinni. "It was rejected."
Israeli tanks and helicopter gunships blitzed the headquarters of a Palestinian security chief, Jibril al-Rajoub, near Ramallah, setting buildings ablaze and causing an unknown number of casualties among the 400 people said to be inside.
Rajoub, who was evacuated earlier, denied there were any militants wanted by Israel sheltering in the compound.
In Ramallah, the head of medical services in the West Bank said three civilians had been killed in the city yesterday.
Moussa Abu Hmaid said an Israeli sniper had shot dead a 56-year-old woman outside Ramallah hospital. Medical workers had found the bodies of two other Palestinians, a handicapped man named Ayoub Musallam, 40, and Mohammed Mahroum, 32.
Troops thrust into the northern city of Tulkarm and nearby villages of Anabta and Kafr al-Labad.
In Tulkarm, soldiers used loudhailers to order terrified residents to stay indoors or be shot. "A curfew is imposed. Any violators will be fired at," they shouted, witnesses said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS