Israel ups West Bank units

JERUSALEM - Israeli military officials say the Army is bolstering its West Bank forces, but a Palestinian official says such reports are exaggerated and accuses Israel of applying "psychological pressure."

The Israeli officials, who declined to be identified, said the Army had begun to send infantry and armoured reinforcements to the West Bank overnight after an escalation in 10 months of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

The statement came after a day of tit-for-tat violence in which Israeli helicopter gunships killed four activists of the militant Hamas group and Palestinians launched their first West Bank mortar bomb attacks since the uprising started.

Israel Radio said Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer had decided to reinforce troops around Palestinian-ruled Jenin and Bethlehem.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war and handed about 40 per cent of the occupied land to Palestinians under peace deals starting in 1994. The violence erupted in September following a deadlock in peacemaking.

Israeli television stations broadcast videotape footage they said showed the Army was deploying more troops in the West Bank.

The acting governor of the Palestinian-ruled West Bank city of Jenin, Haidar Irsheid, said: "We noticed an unusual movement of existing Israeli forces in the areas under their security control, but there was no buildup of troops or tanks."

"What we heard on Israeli military radio is mere psychological pressure on the Palestinians." Near Bethlehem, where Israeli officials had said troops would meet to deploy, a camera crew saw one armoured bulldozer and two busloads of Israeli soldiers - about 60 men - arrive overnight.



A Palestinian security official in Bethlehem, who declined to be identified, said there was a reinforcement of troops on three sides of the West Bank city and called it "the largest deployment since the start of the Intifada [uprising]."

Israeli cabinet secretary Gideon Saar said no decision had been taken to reoccupy Palestinian ruled areas, an action that would likely anger both Palestinians and Israel's international allies.

Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, an aide to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, said the Israeli announcement was pushing the sides towards more violence and that Israel was not committed to a truce brokered by US CIA director George Tenet last month.

Early yesterday, Israeli military officials announced: "At this time, the Israeli Army is mobilising infantry and armoured vehicles to the Judea and Samaria area [the West Bank]".

The statement came two days before the Group of Eight Summit begins in Genoa, Italy. European and US leaders whom Israel has asked to pressure Arafat to end the bloodshed are gathering at the summit.

The Israeli officials said the move was the result of a "Palestinian refusal to abide by the Tenet agreement and to stop the use of terror against Israeli civilians."

A mortar bomb attack on Gilo on Tuesday touched off fierce fighting, the first in the area since the truce was put forward.

Later, the Army said Palestinians fired a second mortar bomb from the West Bank village of Beit Jala at a road frequented by Jewish settlers. No casualties were reported in either attack.

After the Israeli missile strike in the West Bank city of Bethlehem and the mortar bomb attacks, the Israeli Army reported shooting throughout the West Bank.

On Monday, a Palestinian suicide bomber from the militant Islamic Jihad group blew himself up near a train station in northern Israel, killing two soldiers.

The fresh bloodshed led to an exchange of threats.

Fourteen Palestinian factions vowed to target "every soldier and every settler" and Israel pledged to retaliate for each Palestinian attack.

Israeli military sources said one of the Hamas activists killed in Bethlehem, Omar Saada, 45, was a senior official in the organisation's local branch and was planning a "terror attack" at the closing ceremonies in Israel of the Maccabiah Games, the Jewish Olympics, on July 23.

At least 485 Palestinians, 128 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have died since the revolt began after peace talks stalled.

- REUTERS

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