JENIN,
West Bank, June 6 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israeli forces
pulled out of the battered refugee camp of Jenin Thursday, June 6, a
day after tanks and troops rolled in, but kept the northern West Bank
town encircled, Palestinian security sources said, Agence
France-Persse (AFP) reported.
Just
hours earlier, Israeli helicopter gunships fired at targets in the
West Bank town of Ramallah as tanks returned to the town where they
targeted Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's headquarters,
Palestinian security officials said.
Around
15 tanks and armored troop carriers entered Ramallah from the south,
advancing into the Batnalhawa district where troops started searching
a building, they added, according to AFP.
The
new incursion was at the opposite end of the city to Arafat's
headquarters in northern Ramallah, which dozens of tanks left just
seven hours earlier.
Palestinians
in Ramallah were, meanwhile, bewildered by the latest Israeli
offensive on their town and shocked by the trashing of their
President’s HQ.
Mohammad
Yaghi, a 37-year-old Palestinian civil servant, surveyed the damage
wrought by Israeli occupation forces to Arafat's compound and shook
his head.
"It's
crazy," Yaghi said as he stood amid the rubble. "They [the
Israeli occupation forces] don't know what they want."
The
hit-and-run attack by Israeli tanks and troops stunned Ramallah
residents with its ferocity and bewildered them with its quick windup.
"It's
unbelievable. It's amazing," said a 42-year-old Palestinian
import-export executive who gave his name only as Wael. "They
[the Israeli occupation forces] come and they go and nobody's stopping
it."
Arafat's
Muqataa compound, where a five-week Israeli siege was lifted May 2,
was stripped of all signs as the headquarters of a functioning
government.
In
less than six hours of intensive tank shelling and dynamiting, it was
transformed into a tortured moonscape of mostly flattened buildings,
crushed cars and debris, AFP reported.
One
administrative building had its wall sheared away, exposing shelves of
neatly stacked files. At least eight other structures were little more
than listing piles of concrete slabs and roofing, some still
smoldering.
Arafat's
offices, three stories of sand-colored stucco, were further riddled by
bullets and tank shells. The inside was a riot of downed ceiling
tiles, broken furniture and glass, sandbags and rubbish, AFP added.
Arafat
was unscathed, but got a taste of Israeli firepower up close and
personal as shellfire wreaked havoc on his bedroom, bathroom and study
while he was moved to a safer part of the building.
His
bathroom and shower were destroyed and a huge hole punched in the wall
that separated them from the 72-year-old Arafat's office. The mirror
of his bedroom was shattered and shards of glass covered his dresser,
said AFP.
The
Palestinian President, looking drawn and somber, appeared at his
doorway by mid-morning, weakly flashing the V-sign and vowing to
continue the Palestinian resistance as some 100 supporters cheered and
whistled.
"This
will only increase the steadfastness of our people," Arafat said
before conducting a 10-minute inspection of the destruction of his
compound, which he said testified to Israeli "fascism and
racism."
About
15 tanks and armored personnel carriers returned in the afternoon.
But
in the morning, as the sun rose over the complex with no trace of an
Israeli soldier or tank in sight, an almost festive air set in.
Scavengers
young and old hauling away bits of scrap metal and cabling mixed with
journalists interviewing Palestinian leaders and hawkers selling bread
and ice cream.
Other
Palestinians felt drawn to inspect the damage.
Several
suggested the lightning Israeli attack was the last warning to the
Palestinian President before Israel took action to expel him.
Few
expressed fears of a prolonged occupation such as the siege launched
on March 29.
"In
the last invasion, they did all that they could do," said Yaghi,
the administrator of the Palestinian ministry of parliamentary
affairs.
But
others said the raid was part of a new pattern of lower-level warfare
adopted by the Israelis more than a month after the declared end of
their major West Bank offensive.
"It's
like an occupation with breaks at the weekend," Mustapha
Barghuti, head of the Palestinian health union and a rights activist,
told AFP.
"To
sustain it [means] we are creating the worst kind of apartheid and
building tens of Berlin Walls," he said, referring to Israel's
closure of West Bank cities and plans to turn them into cantons by
building a fence around them.
Speculation
was rife among Palestinian leaders as to whether Washington was giving
its tacit approval to the Israelis to continue their offensives.
For
Nabil Abu Rudeina, a close aide to Arafat, there was no doubt.
