Arafat's court jails four militants for killing top Israeli

RAMALLAH - A Palestinian military court convening in President Yasser Arafat's headquarters last night imposed jail terms on four men for last year's killing of an Israeli cabinet minister.

The Palestinian Authority said the judge, Brigadier-General Ribhi Arafat, sentenced the four men to prison sentences ranging from 18 years with hard labour to one year for the assassination in October of far-right tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi.

Israel, which sent tanks to Arafat's compound in Ramallah on March 29 at the start of a West Bank offensive launched after a spate of suicide bombings, has said it will keep Arafat confined until he hands over the militants for trial in Israel.

The radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said at the time it killed Zeevi in revenge for Israel's killing in August of its leader, Abu Ali Mustafa.

The four men tried in Ramallah were PFLP members.

Israel had not reacted last night to news of the trial and sentences.



Earlier yesterday, Israeli tanks rolled into the Palestinian-ruled part of the divided West Bank city of Hebron, killing two Palestinians and wounding at least four others.

About 15 tanks and armoured vehicles moved about 1km into the city before dawn and battled armed Palestinians before pulling out several hours later.



Palestinian security sources said Yaqoub al-Sarayrah, a leader of Arafat's Fatah faction, was one of two men killed in the Israeli raid on Bani Naim, near Hebron.

They said four people were wounded and 15 detained.

The Israeli Army said the two men were killed in a gun battle. It described them as "terrorists" behind attacks in the Hebron area and said it had detained seven suspected militants.

In the Gaza Strip, three Palestinians, at least two of them known militants, were killed in an explosion in a house in Jabalya refugee camp.

The Israeli Army said troops killed four Palestinians trying to attack the settlement of Kfar Darom in the Gaza Strip early yesterday.

A Palestinian security spokesman had no word on that incident, but said a policeman had been killed and two wounded when their post was hit by machinegun fire from three Israeli tanks that had thrust into the nearby town of Deir al-Balah.

A Palestinian man was shot dead at an Israeli checkpoint near Jerusalem. An Army spokesman said the man tried to escape from his car, which was rigged with explosives and blew up as he was gunned down.

In Bethlehem, Palestinian gunmen holed up in the Church of the Nativity are expected to release 10 to 15 youngsters and two bodies in the first sign that the standoff with Israeli troops is coming to an end.

The Israeli Army said militants inside the church had agreed to let out about a dozen youngsters, including two 10-year-old boys, and to release the bodies of two Palestinians.

About 230 people including priests, monks and nuns have been trapped inside the church, regarded as the birthplace of Jesus, which is besieged by Israeli troops seeking wanted militants.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were to hold a third day of talks yesterday on the fate of gunmen who burst into the church on April 2 after Israeli forces raided Bethlehem in a sweep for militants.

In another development, United States Secretary of State Colin Powell urged Israel to co-operate with a United Nations team investigating events in the Jenin refugee camp, the scene of fierce fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen in the three-week-old West Bank offensive.

Powell told a Senate committee hearing in Washington that he had "seen no evidence that would suggest a massacre took place".

But he said it was in everyone's best interests to let the UN team find out what had happened.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan sent the team to Geneva this week to prepare for a trip to the Middle East, despite Israeli objections.

Israel told the UN it would not admit the team to the camp unless it included military and counter-terrorism experts.

Annan said experts might be added to the team, although he would not remove anyone now on the mission.



Powell said he had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and understood his concerns about the UN mission.

But, he said, such a mission "seemed to be in the best interests of all concerned, especially the best interests of the Israelis".

He said the fact-finding team was preferable to "the coarse speculation that was out there as to what happened, with terms being tossed around like massacre and mass graves, none of which so far seems to be the case".





Palestinians have accused Israeli troops of committing a massacre and say hundreds of innocent people died in the operation.

Israel says it killed only a few dozen gunmen and lost 23 soldiers in street battles.

Powell said a 3 1/2-hour visit by Assistant Secretary of State William Burns last Friday had confirmed that "there was a great deal of destruction that took place on the ground with bulldozers".

Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Israel believed the UN fact-finding team had already decided before starting its mission "to entrap Israel so it could be put on trial".

- REUTERS

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