The Palestinian Authority has branded the Israeli attack on Jenin a "declaration of war," and asked that the UN Security Council convene to discuss the incursion, the first into the center of a Palestinian-controlled town since the start of the Intifada, said reports.
Ten Israeli tanks entered the Palestinian city, destroying a police station and wounding at least three Palestinians before they withdrew.
The occupation troops reportedly encountered fierce opposition from Palestinian resistance fighters and residents as they attempted to advance into the area.
Witnesses told the official Palestinian news agency, WAFA, that the Israeli troops seized the governor's headquarters and a Palestinian police station during the incursion.
Israel claimed that two Palestinian suicide bombers were dispatched from Jenin.
Jenin's deputy governor, Haider Irshid, said that heavy fighting broke out in the town, although local television reported that official Palestinian security forces were not involved and that the resistance to the Israeli show of force had come from Fateh members and other Palestinian fighters, AFP said.
An Israeli army spokesman confirmed that an armored force had made an incursion into "zone A," which is entirely under the control of the Palestinian authority, to destroy a Palestinian police building.
The spokesman was quoted by Haaretz newspaper as saying that Palestinians had opened fire on the Israeli troops without causing any injuries.
"Due to the fact that the sector is heavily populated, the soldiers refrained from returning fire," the spokesman said.
"Our forces subsequently withdrew into Israeli territory," he added.
Israeli helicopters flew above the city during the operation, but did not appear to fire, witnesses told the Associated Press.
Palestinian Information Minister told Reuters that the attack was a “declaration of war,” while negotiator Saeb Erekat said it was “part of (Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon's campaign to undermine the peace process and undermine the Palestinian Authority."
Erekat said the Palestinian UN representative was in touch with the president of the Security Council, appealing for international forces to protect the Palestinians, "because this is the only way out."
He also said that the PA had asked the Security Council to discuss the takeover of the Orient House and other Palestinian Authority institutions in occupied east Jerusalem and the neighborhood of Abu Dis just outside the city.
The Palestinians want the 15-member council to reverse what happened and maybe to help rescue the situation as a whole, Nasser Al Kidwa, the Palestinian UN observer, told the Associated Press on Monday.
FATEH ACTIVIST KILLED IN EXPLOSION IN NABLUS, SEVEN PALESTINIANS INJURED BY ISRAELI SHELLING IN WEST BANK
A Fateh activist was killed and another injured Tuesday in a big explosion in the West Bank city of Nablus, while seven other Palestinians were injured by Israeli shelling in the West Bank.
Earlier, two Jewish settlers were injured in a drive-by shooting near the flshpoint city of Hebron.
AFP identified the Fateh activist as Shadi Al Asfuri, a 19-year-old.
Palestinian sources said they were unable to immediately ascertain the cause of the explosion.
Fateh is a Palestinian resistance group aligned with PA President Yasser Arafat.
In Hebron, two Jewish settlers were injured Tuesday in a shooting attack by Palestinian fighters, said Haaretz newspaper.
They are residents of the Jewish settlement of Adura, which is located close to the 1967 Green Line border, said the paper.
In other incidents, seven Palestinians were wounded by Israeli shelling across the West Bank, Palestinian security sources told AFP.
Three of the seven were wounded in Beit Jala, another three as they were driving in a car in Bethlehem, and one at the Al Aza refugee camp near Bethlehem.
The Israeli army confirmed there had been an exchange of Israeli-Palestinian gunfire between Beit Jala and the Jewish settlement at Gilo, on the border of east Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Beit Jala resident Jamal Jawarish told AFP that the Israeli army had evicted his family and his brother's family from their homes so the occupation forces could use them as a military outpost.
Jawarish said his family of eight and his brother's family of five were now homeless.
He said the Israeli army had placed machine guns on the roofs of their houses, which he said were declared a "closed military area."
On Monday, a 22-year-old member of Force 17, Hamada Barsh, was seriously wounded when Israeli forces shelled his car, witnesses said.
Barsh was rushed to hospital in Ramallah and was said to be in serious condition, they told AFP.
Also, a member of the Palestinian Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Naser Abu Zaideh, was killed by the occupation troops in occupied east Jerusalem.
Israeli security sources said that members of a special unit set up to "hunt for the killers of an Israeli teenager, shot and killed the man who headed the cell, which carried out the murder."
A Jerusalem police spokesman was quoted by Haaretz as saying that Abu Zaideh was killed in a police chase.
Jewish settler, Yuri Gushkin, 18 was killed three weeks ago.
The Jerusalem police spokesman, Shmulik Ben-Ruby, said that Abu Zaideh, who was driving a stolen car, attempted to ram into police officers trying to stop his vehicle.
"The policemen fired warning shots in the air and then fired at the car's tires and when he continued trying to escape, fired at the car, critically wounding the suspect who died en route to hospital," Ben-Ruby told the paper.
Palestinians on Monday observed a general strike, and demonstrators scuffled with Israeli police at Orient House, the unofficial headquarters of the PLO.
The United States has criticized the Israeli takeover of Orient House last Friday as a "political escalation."
Arab nations have expressed outrage at the move.
AFP's latest death tally for the Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation comes out to 13 Arab Israelis, 547 Palestinians, and 146 Israelis, putting the ratio of deaths at around four Palestinians killed for every Israeli loss.
Israel's wounded, according to the Jewish state's security forces, number in the high hundreds, while the Palestine Red Crescent Society puts the number of Palestinians injured at over 14,000.
Amnesty International reported early this year that almost 100 Palestinian children had been killed by Israeli soldiers, nearly all in situations where the occupation troops were under no immediate threat - Albawaba.com
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