Gaza becomes retaliation zone

GAZA STRIP - Israeli troops retook control of parts of the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip yesterday, launching air, land and sea strikes to retaliate for a mortar attack inside Israel.

Israel ordered the assault less than 24 hours after its first bombing raid on a Syrian target in Lebanon for five years.

"It's clear that Israel has expanded the sphere of war with the Palestinians. It has carried out a new and dangerous step by reoccupying Palestinian areas," Palestinian cabinet minister Hassan Asfour said.

Along nearly the entire length of the Gaza Strip yesterday, the Israeli strike on Palestinian security posts was the fiercest and most widespread of almost seven months of violence.

Witnesses said the Army had thrust into Palestinian-ruled Beit Hanoun near the Erez crossing to Israel. Blockades kept Palestinians from entering an area of homes and orchards.

The Army said it had taken over the land because it was being used for actions against Israel and that it would retreat once violence ended.

Israel transferred most of the Gaza Strip to Palestinian rule in 1994 at the start of seven years of peacemaking, which deadlocked before the latest spate of violence.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the overnight assault after five mortars fired from the strip slammed into the southern Israeli town of Sderot 5km away.

The mortars landed deeper in Israel than any since the start of the latest Palestinian uprising for independence last September, falling just down the road from Sharon's ranch.

Israel closed all roads into the Gaza Strip, effectively pinning the area's 1.2 million Palestinians in a 45km long stretch that is just 6km wide at its narrowest point.

Gaza City's main police headquarters and two elite Force 17 security unit posts were among at least seven main targets in an attack that lasted more than four hours.

Palestinian sources said a 24-year-old Palestinian policeman was killed in the Israeli reprisal.

Hospital authorities said at least 27 people were wounded.

"It's like a nightmare fireworks display," one Gaza City resident said of the rain of fire.

At least 377 Palestinians, 13 Israeli Arabs and 71 other Israelis have died since the uprising began in September.

"This is the most savage attack we have endured," said Muawiyah Hassnein, director-general of the emergency department of the Palestinian Department of Health.

Public security chief Major General Abdel-Razek al-Majaydeh also described it as Israel's most violent attack on the Gaza Strip.

"We will not kneel in the face of the attacks. Our spirit is high and we will not be weakened by Sharon and his fellows."

Asfour said: "It is high time the Arab leaders reconsidered their ways of how to confront and how to put an end to this aggression ... Will they wake up after all the Palestinian land is reoccupied and after Israel enters all Arab capitals?

"We call on the Arab people to go down to the streets in their countries and wake up their leaders."

An Israeli Army spokesman declined to say how long Israeli troops would remain.

"We are not speaking of an occupation, we are speaking of taking control," Brigadier-General Ron Kitrey, told Israel Radio yesterday.

"We are speaking of a shifting to the depth of the Palestinian territory of a few hundred metres up to a kilometre in certain places," Kitrey said.

He said troops could stay a few days or "a few more days" until the Palestinian Authority restored order.

"It will go on so long as there is a need for our steps in order to carry out what the Authority has failed to carry out or avoided carrying out - and that is to ensure there will not be terrorist activity or shooting activity at Israeli citizens or communities."

At some points, Israeli tanks were accompanied by bulldozers that demolished homes or sandbagged locations from which Israel has said Palestinians fire on military posts and the 7000 Jewish settlers who live near the area.

Before the Israeli assaults, security sources in Beirut said the 35,000 Syrian troops based in Lebanon were on high alert after Israeli planes killed three Syrian soldiers and destroyed a Syrian radar station in east Lebanon's Bekaa valley on Monday.

It was the first Israeli air strike on a Syrian position in Lebanon since April 1996 and followed the death of an Israeli soldier in a missile attack by Hizbollah guerrillas on the Israel-Lebanon border on Saturday.

Damascus and its Lebanese guerrilla ally Hizbollah pondered a response to the surprise Israeli attack amid mounting Lebanese opposition to an aggressive military strategy against Israel.

There were warnings that the bombing of the Syrian radar station could lead to wider conflict. Israel's Defence Minister said the rules of the game had changed in Lebanon since Israel ended its occupation of the south nearly a year ago.

- REUTERS

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