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Israel Raids Palestinian Territory as Arafat Pushes for World Support
HEBRON, West Bank, Aug 24 (News Agencies) - Israeli tanks stormed into Palestinian-ruled parts of Hebron early Friday, executing the occupation government's deepest excursion into autonomous Palestinian territory since the start of the Palestinian uprising last September, in what the army said was retaliation for the shooting of a settler boy.
The gun battles dashed hopes of beginning the "seven days of calm" Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is insisting on before moving ahead with an internationally backed peace plan.
The 10-year-old boy was seriously wounded by gunfire from a hill in Abu Sneina in divided Hebron, which overlooks a Jewish occupation settlement of about 400 people lodged within the boundaries of this city of 120,000 Palestinians.
Before the Hebron raid, Israeli troops rolled into the Gaza Strip and shot an 11-year-old Palestinian boy, Mahmoud Zourabin in the heart, killing him. They also attempted to assassinate a Palestinian activist leader in a West Bank missile attack.
Witnesses said that during the three-hour Hebron incursion, Israeli forces demolished buildings, which the army said had been used to fire on Israelis. An Israeli army spokesman said it pulled out of the area after the demolition.
"We planned to blow up two specific buildings from where Palestinians fire at us, and they were destroyed," said the spokesman, Lt. Col. Olivier Rafowicz, in a Washington Post article. "After that we left the area. We didn't leave because of resistance, we left because that was the plan from the start."
Two Palestinians initially reported to have died in a battle with Israeli forces were later said by hospital officials to have been only slightly injured.
The Israeli army said one of its troops was wounded during the incursion.
A top army official later told public radio that Israel could re-occupy Abu Sneina, which Palestinians have controlled since Israel pulled out of 80 percent of the city in 1997 under an interim peace deal.
Meanwhile, Palestinian sources said the Israeli army demolished several acres of farmland and searched through homes in a Palestinian-controlled sector of the Gaza Strip early on Friday.
Israel has made several raids on Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip since the beginning of the uprising.
The incidents highlighted the continuing tension which has cast a shadow over plans for a meeting between Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to try to end the bloodshed.
Peres played down hopes that the meeting with the Palestinian President, thrashed out during a bout of shuttle diplomacy by German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, would yield solid results.
"The subjects we will probably have to broach are weighty and complex and I do not believe that we cam settle these things in one meeting alone," Peres told Israeli public television during a trip to Poland.
Meanwhile, Arafat has said he doubts that Peres has the political authority to forge any deal on the deepest questions of the conflict, saying Sharon is the real power in the Israeli government.
The hardline Prime Minister insisted again this week that Israel wants seven days of total calm before going ahead with the internationally backed Mitchell peace plan aimed at getting the two sides back to the negotiating table.
Arafat was in Beijing on Friday in a bid to drum up Chinese support at the United Nations and in the Security Council, where the United States is rejecting Palestinian calls for international observers.
"The main objective of President Arafat's visit to China is to consult with Chinese leaders concerning the Israeli aggression in Palestine," top Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rudeina said in Beijing.
China has forged strong commercial and military links with Israel over the past few years, despite its ostensibly strong support for the Palestinian cause.
Acting U.S. ambassador to the U.N. James Cunningham told reporters in New York on Thursday that Washington would remain opposed to any Security Council action on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"Any resolution is a non-starter as far as we are concerned," he said. "We will oppose a resolution by whatever means we have to."
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