Palestinian police who battled gunmen in the West Bank's biggest refugee camp for more than 12 hours withdrew early Tuesday with two suspects in custody. The operation, in which a policeman and eight passers-by were injured by gunfire, was the first major offensive in President Mahmoud Abbas' campaign to assert control over gunmen and persuade Israel he can stand behind a future peace deal.
For several years police had not dared patrol the four refugee camps in and around the city of Nablus or the old downtown market district, where armed men held sway, but Nablus governor Jamal Mohsein said Tuesday that those days were now over. "We shall post police in all the camps and in the Old City," he said, according to the AP. "In the future, nobody will be able to say that the police cannot go here or there."
The operation was launched around midday Monday as Abbas assured visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that he had started meeting his short-term peace obligations, including disarming gunmen and rounding up illegal weapons.
Police marksmen took up positions on rooftops on the edges of the Balata refugee camp and traded fire with gunmen from Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. After midnight two Al Aqsa fighters armed with assault rifles surrendered to police and the operation ended.
