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Israel captures Hebron after Palestinian attack on settlers

Special to World Tribune.com
MIDDLE EAST NEWSLINE
Monday, April 29, 2002

JERUSALEM Ñ Israel's military has captured the West Bank city of Hebron.

Israeli military sources said that elite troops, backed by tanks and attack helicopters, entered Hebron from three directions overnight Monday.

By daylight, the sources said, the city was captured. Palestinian sources said Israeli helicopters fired missiles at Palestinian Authority and Fatah installations. They said eight people, including a Fatah insurgency leader, were killed in the Israeli operation. More than 20 Palestinians have been arrested.

The Israeli incursion followed the killing of four Israelis in the nearby Jewish settlement of Adoura on Saturday. The Hamas movement claimed responsibility for the attack, in which insurgents dressed as soldiers entered the settlement and fired at residents.

Since 1997, 80 percent of Hebron, with a population of nearly 100,000, has been controlled by the PA. About 400 Jews live in the Israeli-controlled section of the city.

Israeli military sources said they expect the Hebron operation to last until Wednesday. They said that so far Palestinian resistance has been slight.

Earlier, Israel agreed to a U.S. proposal to end the five-month-old siege on PA Chairman Yasser Arafat. The U.S. plan calls for Arafat to leave his Ramallah headquarters in return for the arrest of six Palestinians wanted by Israel.

Four of the Palestinians are suspected of being linked to the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi. The Palestinian fugitives would be placed in a PA jail in the Gaza Strip and their detention would be monitored by British and U.S. security personnel. Israeli military sources said the plan would be implemented over the next week.

Bush also invited Sharon to the White House next week for what Israeli officials termed would be strategic talks. The officials did not elaborate.

Arafat's release was a key demand by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, who met Bush last week at the president's ranch in Texas. The Palestinian fugitives include Arafat's chief financial adviser Fuad Shubaki. Shubaki was said to have arranged for the purchase of a shipload of Iranian weapons captured in the Red Sea in January.

Israeli military sources also said they foiled a plot by Palestinian insurgents to blow up Tel Aviv skyscrapers over the weekend. The sources said the insurgents planned to explode a car bomb between two towers of about 50 stories each in northern Tel Aviv.

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