Despite a statement by Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer that the Jewish state does not intend to keep Palestinian areas it has re-occupied, his forces are staying put in three main West Bank cities, as well as nearby towns, villages and refugee camps, according to reports.
Israeli tanks and infantry pressed ahead Saturday, with what the Washington Post described as their widest-ranging offensive against Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority since its establishment in 1994, pushing into two more West Bank cities, entering the heart of Bethlehem and killing several Arab Christians.
Saturday's death toll reached eight, five of them Palestinian civilians.
Since the assassination of an Israeli cabinet minister Wednesday, the army has entered five of the seven major Palestinian urban areas in the West Bank, taking key strategic positions and threatening to stay indefinitely.
"We plan to stay," a top-ranking Israeli army officer said in an interview Saturday night, speaking on condition of anonymity. The re-occupation "can last days, it can last weeks, and it can last more. We have no orders to change anything either forward or backward. It all depends very much on the Palestinian reaction," he told the Post.
There have been many Israeli incursions into Palestinian-held areas since the current uprising against 34 years of Israeli occupation began 13 months ago. The difference now is that the army has entered numerous Palestinian cities simultaneously - including Bethlehem, a place with religious significance to Christians as the birthplace of Jesus - and gives no indication of leaving.
Israel says the goal of its thrusts into West Bank cities is to tighten its chokehold to stop "terrorist" attacks, to arrest militants on Israel's most-wanted list, and to signal Arafat that his authority will be further eroded unless he takes swift steps to crack down on militant groups and terrorists operating from Palestinian-controlled territory.
The Palestinians say that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's goal is broader - to eradicate Arafat's regime.
"Sharon is destroying the Palestinian Authority and the peace process," said Saeb Erekat, a close aide to Arafat and formerly a top peace negotiator. "He is testing the international community's reaction and especially the American reaction."
But according to AFP, Israel has ignored American and international calls for restraint, amid US efforts to cool Arab public opinion which sees that the Middle East conflict as the root cause of the terrorism that Washington and its allies are combating.
The Israeli military said in a statement that it had "killed or arrested" some 20 Palestinian "terrorists" in its unprecedented ground operations in the West Bank since Thursday.
Bethlehem, famous for the birthplace of Jesus Christ, was engulfed in fighting, with four Palestinians killed Saturday afternoon, after Israeli tanks rolled in the day before.
The United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia looked helpless to defuse the situation as Israel intensified its military campaign, triggered by a Palestinian radical group's gunning down of a cabinet member to avenge the assassination of its own leader.
Israel further assassinated three Fateh leaders on Thursday, prompting a violent reaction from Intifada activists who fired at the neighboring Jewish settlement of Gilo. That was followed by the massive Israeli campaign.
Palestinians say that the Israeli attacks were planned even before Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi was assassinated on Wednesday.
By Thursday, Israeli troops laid siege to the West Bank, penetrating Ramallah and pounding the northern West Bank city of Jenin. Six Palestinians died within the first 24 hours of the offensive, and 20 by Saturday evening.
Israeli troops charged before dawn Saturday into the northern West Bank cities of Qalqilya and Tulkarem. Their forces shot dead two members of the Palestinian security forces and wounded another in the self-rule town of Tulkarem, while a Palestinian policeman and civilian were killed in Qalqilya.
In Bethlehem, Israeli gunfire struck down 19-year-old Palestinian Johnny Thalgia near the Church of the Nativity, while a 48-year-old woman, Aysha Abu Uda, was shot in her home, hospital sources said.
Witnesses said tank fire killed 17-year-old Palestinian Yusef Abayat on the street, although the Israeli army said it opened fire after he stabbed a soldier who was lightly injured.
A 23-year-old woman died after being hit by shrapnel from a tank shell which exploded near her house in the autonomous Palestinian town of Beit Jala, next to Bethlehem, hospital sources added.
The latest killings brought the overall death toll for the year-old Intifada, or Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, to 899 people, including 699 Palestinians and 178 Israelis.
In another confrontation, Israeli helicopter gunships on Saturday evening fired two missiles at at Palestinian snipers on building in Bethlehem, wounding 10 people.
Arafat, after meeting with Russian envoy Andrei Vdovin in Gaza City, blasted the Israeli offensive, according to AFP.
"The Americans asked Israel to show restraint, yet despite that, the army is carrying on its aggression against our people, and continues to blockade our towns and villages," he said.
"All our peace initiatives and all agreements signed between us and them are hitting the wall," he said.
Ben Eliezer responded by saying the troops would withdraw from Palestinian areas when the Arafat's PA took measures to end the operations of resistance fighters.
"Israel has no intention of holding onto territory of the Palestinian Authority," Ben Eliezer said in statement.
"Israeli forces will be removed from every area under Palestinian sovereignty where the [PA] shows the intention of ending the violence and attacks," he said.
The stepped-up military offensives came despite strong signals of irritation from Israel's main ally, Washington, which has been increasingly concerned about stopping the "violence" as it conducts its campaign in Afghanistan, for fear it could unhinge fragile Middle Eastern support for its anti-terror coalition - Albawaba.com
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