Arafat's HQ under new missile attack

RAMALLAH - Israeli Apache helicopters yesterday fired two missiles at a building close to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's office where he and aides were staying, but they were unharmed.

It was the second day in a row Israeli helicopters have hit Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah.

Palestinian officials said the hit building was a few metres from Arafat's office.

Witnesses said the missiles destroyed a one-storey guesthouse and one of Arafat's bodyguards was lightly wounded.

Emerging in a defiant mood, Arafat said: "We are not moved by their planes or missiles or tanks. We will stay steadfast on this land until doomsday."



Twenty two Palestinians have been killed in the past two days in fierce Israeli sea, air and land strikes.

In other developments yesterday:

* Two Palestinians opened fire on Israeli soldiers manning a checkpoint in the northern West Bank. The soldiers returned fire, killing the pair.

Two soldiers were wounded in the shooting, which took place at a checkpoint near the Palestinian village of Baka al-Sharkiyeh.

* Israeli warplanes fired missiles at a Palestinian security building in southern Gaza's Khan Younis refugee camp.

* Tanks raided Palestinian-ruled areas in southern Gaza as part of a wave of Israeli retaliatory attacks for the killing of six soldiers.

* Israeli warplanes hit a Palestinian security installation in Rafah, southern Gaza, and a main Palestinian security compound and TV station in Gaza City.



Plans by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to use yet more military force in the occupied Palestinian territories were yesterday approved by his security cabinet.

Sharon won support for what he called a "new outline on the war on terror".

As the region grew steadily more nervous about the backwash from the worsening conflict, Sharon - who is under pressure from Israel's hard right to invade the West Bank and Gaza - told his cabinet that he was opposed to dragging Israel into a fully fledged war.

But his spokesman, Ranaan Gissin, said Israel would increase its use of "counter-terrorism" methods - a euphemism to describe the work of its death squads, which have assassinated more than 70 Palestinian suspects during the conflict despite widespread criticism.

Those involved in "terrorist activity" would "always have to think about where they sleep at night", Gissin said.

The Palestinians appear to be focusing on Israel's occupation, by killing settlers and soldiers. Marwan Barghouti, a senior Fatah leader, said yesterday that attacks would be mounted on Israeli checkpoints.

Unusually, Saudi Arabia this week proposed that Arab countries normalise ties with Israel if it quit Palestinian lands occupied illegally in 1967, including the West Bank and Gaza. But it is an offer the Saudis know Sharon will refuse.

Israel's Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, told Saudi television that the idea was "an interesting and positive one".

But he also said the basis for progress was "putting an end to terrorist activity", meaning Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

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