Israelis raid Nablus in biggest sweep in months

Nablus, West Bank (Associated Press): In the biggest sweep in months, Israeli troops hunting for militants stormed dozens of homes in this Palestinian city on Wednesday, ordering residents to line up in the dawn chill as tanks blocked roads and helicopters hovered above.

Yasser Arafat denounced the raid, which came two days after five Israelis were killed in a shooting rampage in a farming community, as a "new war crime."

The Palestinian leader also responded angrily to Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's pledge that, if elected prime minister, he would expel him. "Netanyahu has to remember that I am Yasser Arafat and that this is my land and the land of my great-great-grandfathers," he said, shaking his index finger.

The escalation came as Palestinian negotiators met with U.S. envoy David Satterfield, who is seeking comments on a new peace plan calling for Palestinian reforms, an Israeli troop pull-back and a provisional Palestinian state by 2003.

Palestinian officials denied Israeli reports that the United States agreed to put the plan on hold until after Israeli elections Jan. 28; Israeli officials have said the plan does not meet Israeli security concerns and is unacceptable in its present form.

"Contrary to what the Israelis are saying, Mr. Satterfield informed us that the American administration will complete work on the road map and declare it by the middle of next month," said Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat.

The Nablus raid was triggered by a weekend shooting attack on Kibbutz Metzer, an Israeli communal farm, in which a gunman from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a militia linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah group.

The gunman fled the scene after killing five people, included a mother and her two little boys in their home.

Israeli officials on Wednesday identified the gunman as Sirhan Sirhan, a 19-year-old Al Aqsa militiaman from the Tulkarem refugee camp. The officials initially said they believed he was a distant relative of the assassin by the same name who killed Sen. Robert Kennedy in 1968- but later withdrew that claim.

Relatives of the suspected gunman said they had no blood ties to the Kennedy assassin who came from the predominantly Christian village of Taibeh in the West Bank. The Sirhans in the Tulkarem camp are Muslims.

Earlier this week, Israeli troops searched the homes of Sirhan clan members and detained two uncles of the suspected gunman.

Israeli security officials have said the order for the attack came from militiamen in Nablus.

In the Nablus raid, hundreds of soldiers backed by about 100 armored vehicles and helicopter gunships poured into the city before dawn on Wednesday. It was the biggest sweep in the city since Israel's "Defensive Shield" offensive in April, and military commentators said they expected the operation to go on for many days.

Troops have been in Nablus for most of the past seven months, enforcing curfews and manning checkpoints.

The focus of Wednesday's raid were several militant strongholds - the Old City, two neighborhoods near An Najah University as well as the Balata and Askar refugee camps on the outskirts of Nablus.

Several explosions were heard in Nablus' Old City, or Casbah, apparently set off by soldiers breaking open doors. Tanks sealed all exits from the Casbah, a maze of alleys and underground passages and the scene of fierce fighting in April. Troops took over a nearby girls' elementary school as a makeshift base.

Arafat said that the Nablus operation "is a new war crime that the Israeli forces are committing against our people, our cities and our villages."

Troops also swept into Bir Zeit, a university town north of Ramallah, arresting suspected militants and confining residents to their homes.

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli helicopters fired four missiles on a suspected weapons workshop in Gaza City, the second such strike on the site in two days. The attack demolished a car repair shop that had been severely da damaged in a similar pre-dawn attack on Monday. The shop was empty at the time.

Arafat's Fatah faction meanwhile, was trying to persuade the militant Hamas group to stop suicide attack on Israel. However, Hamas hinted on Tuesday, after talks with Fatah in Cairo, that it would not agree to the demand.