Israeli warning: hand over assassins or face consequences

JERUSALEM - Israel yesterday demanded that the Palestinian Authority hand over the killers of a far-right cabinet minister or suffer retribution similar to the United States-led military strikes on Afghanistan.

Israel sent tanks and troops into Palestinian-ruled areas near Jenin and Ramallah yesterday, halting on the outskirts of the West Bank cities.

Gunbattles later erupted near Jenin and a 10-year-old Palestinian girl was last night killed by Israeli tank fire, Palestinian hospital sources said.

Cabinet secretary Gideon Saar said Israel would "act against the Palestinian Authority in the way currently accepted by the international community to act against a leadership that supports terror" if Palestinian President Yasser Arafat did not turn over Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi's killers.

Israeli police had identified the assassins, the Minister of Public Security, Uzi Landau, said last night, adding that security forces would do "everything to get our hands on them and the people who sent them".

Palestinian gunmen shot Zeevi in the head at a Jerusalem hotel on Wednesday night. The 75-year-old former general, who opposed interim Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements and advocated the "transfer" of Arabs from land claimed by Jews as their biblical birthright, was to have a state funeral.

His assassination raised fears in the US and Europe that it could spark more fighting between Israel and the Palestinians and destroy a truce the US hopes will cement Arab and Islamic support for its war against terrorists.

Israel's ultimatum did not include a deadline but was intended to increase international pressure on Arafat to crack down on militants and end an uprising against Israeli occupation that has raged for more than a year.

The Palestinian Authority condemned Zeevi's killing, the first assassination of a member of Israel's Government by an Arab. A senior official said Arafat had issued orders to find and arrest those behind the attack.

"We reject all forms of political assassinations," Palestinian cabinet minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said.

Days after US President George W. Bush praised Arafat for trying to end the violence, the White House said it was time for the Palestinian Authority "to take vigorous action against terrorists".

A senior Israeli diplomatic source said Israel's security forces knew who was behind the assassination and would hand a list of names to the Palestinian Authority so they could be arrested in accordance with interim peace deals.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon placed blame for the assassination on Arafat, saying he "carried out and is carrying out acts of terrorism and never took steps against it". Sharon had remarked earlier that Zeevi's death changed "everything".

Israel banned Arafat from using Gaza Airport. A source said the ban did not prevent Arafat leaving the Gaza Strip but would make travelling more difficult for him.

The radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) - which was behind a suicide bombing that wounded two soldiers yesterday - said it killed Zeevi to avenge Israel's assassination of its leader, Abu Ali Mustafa, in August.

Laila Khaled, who became a household name in the late 1960s after she led the hijacking of an American TWA flight to Damascus, said the group might target other leaders.

Khaled, now a leader of the PFLP, said: "This is one of the answers that we have given to Israelis by assassinating and killing this symbol of [the] extremist right in Israel."

Asked if Sharon could be a PFLP target, she said: "We wish ... There are no red lines in confronting the enemy. All lines are opened to strike the enemy wherever it is."

The son of a senior PFLP official said Palestinian police had arrested his father and another PFLP leader in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. Authorities did not confirm that report.

Before the killing, Israel and the Palestinians had pledged to try to end the surge of violence that began in September last year after peace talks stalled.

Saar said the Government would continue its "policy of self-defence" - killing Palestinian militants who Israel says are behind attacks on its people. Israel would continue its security blockades in the territories and enter Palestinian-ruled land whenever "there is an operational need to act against terror".

There was no immediate Palestinian comment on Israel's ultimatum. Palestinian officials have in the past rejected Israeli demands that they arrest militants on its behalf.

Zeevi resigned his cabinet post in protest on Tuesday after Israel eased blockades in two Palestinian areas and troops pulled out of a reoccupied part of the West Bank city of Hebron. He died before the resignation could take effect.

- REUTERS

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