Israel pulls out after battering Arafat HQ

Israeli troops pulled out of Yasser Arafat’s presidential compound on Thursday after shelling his offices and blowing up buildings in a...

Israeli troops pulled out of Yasser Arafat’s presidential compound on Thursday after shelling his offices and blowing up buildings in an overnight raid which followed a deadly Palestinian car bombing.

Arafat was not hurt in the six-hour Army swoop, a day after a Palestinian Islamic militant blew up his explosives-packed car next to an inter-city bus in northern Israel, killing at least 18 people, 13 of them soldiers.


Yasser Arafat’s damaged compound in Ramallah. Reuters photo

Israeli troops also withdrew from Nablus after a week-long clampdown in which hundreds of suspected Palestinian militants were detained. But the Army push into Arafat’s premises undercut new international diplomacy aimed at breaking a vicious cycle of West Asia violence and reviving peace talks.

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Palestinian security sources said at least one Palestinian, an intelligence officer, had been killed by the tank shelling and at least six people in the compound were wounded.

Sources said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had not intended to reimpose the siege he lifted on May 2 when Arafat turned militants sheltering inside and wanted by Israel over to internationally monitored custody.

They said Sharon sought only to dish out a short blow to show Arafat he could not get away with a ‘‘do-nothing’’ approach to Palestinian suicide bombers. Sharon delayed his trip to the US for talks with President George W. Bush until Saturday in order to deal with a response to the bombing. (Reuters)

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