Israel raids Ramallah before Olmert-Mubarak meet

Ramallah (West Bank), Jan 5: Israeli forces mounted a rare raid into the West Bank city of Ramallah yesterday, killing three Palestinians, while a spasm of factional fighting among Palestinians in Gaza left five dead.

The Ramallah operation was launched a few hours before Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met in Egypt to explore restarting stalled peacemaking.

Smoke rose over central Ramallah after Israeli armoured vehicles and bulldozers, slamming aside parked cars near the main Manara Square, pushed into the city to carry out what an Israeli army spokeswoman called ''routine arrest activity''.

She said four wanted men had been detained.

The raid was the biggest in Ramallah since May, when four Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces. Palestinians responded to the latest incursion with gunfire and rocks as pedestrians scrambled for safety.

Hospital officials said three Palestinians were killed and at least 25 other people were wounded before Israeli forces withdrew.

The officials said earlier four had died but later amended the figure.

''This operation proves that Israeli calls for peace and security are false,'' Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement read by a spokesman.

The moderate Palestinian leader, locked in a power struggle with the governing Hamas movement, also appealed for an end to mounting internal violence in the Gaza Strip.

GAZA FIGHTING

In fighting between rival Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip, a policeman loyal to the governing Hamas movement was killed by gunmen from Abbas's Fatah faction.

Blaming the shooting on bodyguards of Colonel Mohammed Ghareeb of the Preventive Security Service, Hamas gunmen then besieged his home, killing the officer and three of his men and wounding his wife, in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya.

Clashes also erupted in the nearby Jabalya refugee camp and at least 25 people were wounded, hospital officials said. Explosions were heard in Gaza City, but their cause was not immediately known.

Gazans said they feared that Ghareeb's death would lead to a sharp surge in internal fighting. Local radio talk shows were flooded with calls from residents appealing to Fatah and Hamas to pull back from the brink.

Shortly after the raid Olmert and Mubarak met for talks on reviving a peace process and, possibly, to discuss extending a Gaza ceasefire to the West Bank.

''President Mubarak asserted to Olmert that Egypt rejects and is indignant at the military operation which Israeli forces carried out in Ramallah today,'' Egypt's state news agency MENA said.

At a news conference with Mubarak, Olmert said he regretted any loss of innocent life.

''But one must remember that Israel must take measures to prevent terrorists from harming Israeli citizens. Today's operation was aimed at arresting a terrorist who murdered an innocent Israeli,'' Olmert said.

A senior leader of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group in Abbas's Fatah faction, said the raid was aimed at capturing one of its top members.

Yesterday, five people were killed in the Gaza Strip in the worst internal fighting since Hamas and Fatah agreed a shaky ceasefire in the territory two weeks ago.

Violence surged in Gaza after Abbas challenged Hamas by calling for early parliamentary and presidential elections after talks on forming a unity government failed.

REUTERS

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