Palestinian invasion plan revealed: swift Israeli denials

JERUSALEM - Three Israeli ministers have denied the existence of a military plan to destroy the Palestinian Authority, as reported by the British publication Foreign Report.

Published by the influential Jane's Information Group, the report says the goal of the action would be to destroy Palestinian armed forces and the Palestinian Authority, forcing Chairman Yasser Arafat back into exile, as he was for 12 years after the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

"There has not been any discussion in the security cabinet of such a plan," Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told Israeli public radio.

Peres, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer must approve any major military strike.

"I take part in all security cabinet meetings and never has such a plan been submitted," Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi, a noted hard-liner, told military radio.

Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit issued a similar denial.

Sharon's security cabinet includes 13 members from Israel's right and left-wing unity Government.

Foreign Report said it had seen what it claimed to be an executive summary of a proposal presented to the Israeli Government this week.

The assault would be launched at the Government's discretion after the next suicide bomb attack that caused widespread deaths and injuries. The Government would cite the bloodshed as justification.

According to Foreign Report, the generals envisaged a military operation of up to one month.

The plan calls for airstrikes by F-15 and F-16 fighter bombers, a heavy artillary bombardment and then an attack by a combined forced of 30,000 men, including paratroopers, tank brigades and infantry.

Israel's Arab neighbours, Syria, Jordan and Egypt, are expected to stay out of the fight - but the report considers the possibility that Iraq might try to intervene with troops, who would be destroyed by the Israeli Air Force. It also states that Egypt could invade the Sinai peninsula, forcing Israel to call up its reserves.

Estimated Israeli casualties would be measured in the hundreds. Palestinian losses would be in their thousands.

By the end of the operation, the generals believed Arafat would either have left or been forced to leave the West Bank and Gaza Strip. His closest allies would either be dead or also out of the area.

The Palestinian armed forces, estimated at some 40,000 people, would be disarmed, dead or held in detention camps.

The blueprint was presented by Israeli chief of staff Brigadier-General Shaul Mofaz, said Foreign Report.

The journal's sources said the Israeli Army's current high command wanted the military to be given a more assertive role.

Meanwhile, a Palestinian attack in which two Jewish settlers were wounded yesterday triggered the worst gunbattle in the West Bank city of Hebron since the Palestinian uprising began nine months ago.

"The city is shaking," one witness said. Power went out in most of the divided city and the scream of ambulance sirens cut through the night.

The battles, further proof that a United States-brokered ceasefire is all but dead, erupted after the two Israelis were shot, one fatally, near the settlement of Kiryat Arba, adjacent to Hebron.

Enraged settlers went on the rampage, wounding more than 60 Palestinians, damaging 100 cars and setting fire to houses, shops and olive groves.

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