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.
