Scores of Israeli tanks and armored vehicles streamed into West Bank's largest city Nablus and encircled three adjacent refugee camps on Wednesday night, meeting heavy fighting from Palestinian gunmen.
Palestinian hospital officials said a 53-year-old Palestinian woman was killed in the first bout of fighting in the city's center. Five Palestinians were wounded, apparently when shells hit two apartments in downtown Nablus.
Israeli forces, backed by attack helicopters, surrounded the four Palestinian refugee camps next to the city, witnesses said, and there were exchanges of fire.
Only two major West Bank towns — Hebron and Jericho — were still under Palestinian control late Wednesday.
For its part, the Palestinian leadership called for Palestinians to mobilize for a "long resistance", while warning Israelis they could not live in security if they backed their government's "oppressive" policy.
"We call on the Palestinian masses to organize for a long resistance against the occupier," the leadership said in a statement issued in Gaza City.
It called on the Palestinians "to mobilize all their potential to face up to the unjust war aimed at destroying the Palestinian Authority (of Yasser Arafat) and reoccupying all the Palestinian territories."
The Palestinians must "defend their homeland," the statement said. It warned that "the people of Israel will not be able to live in freedom and peace if they support the oppression and enslavement of the Palestinian people as well as the massacres."
In a message to the Israeli people, the Palestinian leadership declared the actions of Israel's government and army "will only separate us by rivers of blood instead of building bridges of peace between us."
Turning to the United States, it said the US administration was capable of "making Israel halt its crime that will leave indelible and destructive traces on the peace process and stability in the region."
It called for Arab countries to be "more active ... with all our friends in the world to contain and dissuade (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon and obtain international protection for the Palestinians who are being subjected to a campaign of extermination."
In Bethlehem, about 200 Palestinians, many of them armed, are still holed up in the Church of the Nativity, one of Christianity's holiest sites, besieged by soldiers outside.
Israeli security sources said negotiations were underway with the gunmen to abandon the church or allow non-combatants out as a priest there appealed for international help to prevent a "massacre" in the town revered as Jesus's birthplace. The Israeli army said it had strict orders not to shoot at or attack the church.
Fighting was heaviest Wednesday in Jenin, north of Nablus that Israel has invaded six times before in the past 18 months of uprising.
Dozens of tanks entered Jenin and surrounded the adjacent refugee camp early Wednesday. Helicopters and tanks fired machine guns at gunmen who hurled grenades and fired from assault rifles.
Five Palestinians, including a local leader of armed group, a nurse and a 13-year-old boy, were killed in the fighting. An Israeli officer was also killed.
Meanwhile it was reported that three Israeli soldiers were wounded Thursday during fighting in the northern West Bank.
An Israeli soldier was moderately wounded in the Jenin area, Army Radio reported.
In Nablus and Tulkarm overnight, two soldiers were moderately and lightly wounded. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
