10 Palestinians die as Israeli tanks raid West Bank towns, villages

By Associated Press, 9/13/2001

ERICHO, West Bank - Israeli tanks and bulldozers rolled into Jenin and Jericho in the West Bank early today, hours after raiding other West Bank sites. Palestinian security officials said 10 Palestinians, including an 11-year-old girl, were killed during incursions yesterday and today.

The troops entered Jenin, on the northern edge of the West Bank, around 2 a.m. for the second time in 24 hours, witnesses said. Trading gunfire with residents, the Israelis destroyed the rest of a police compound they attacked a day before and then left.

Palestinians said the tanks shelled houses and fired machine guns, killing three: a man and woman in a house and a gunman. Nine others were wounded during the incursion, they said.

Israeli forces entered Jericho around the same time. Palestinian security officials said 22 Israeli tanks and three bulldozers entered from two sides. A cloud of smoke and an orange glow could be seen at the Aqbat Jaber refugee camp at the south end of town.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment on either operation, but officials have said that Jenin was a center of militant Palestinian activity and the source of several suicide bombers who hit Israel.

The purpose of the Jericho raid wasn't immediately clear, but the presence of the bulldozers indicated that they intended to tear down Palestinian structures, as they have in previous incursions into Palestinian-controlled areas.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat accused Israelis of ''using the tragedy of the events in New York and Washington, feeling that the attention of the world is elsewhere.''

''There was nothing to provoke this,'' he said.

In Israel's incursions yesterday, tanks moved into Jenin and two nearby villages, Tamoun and Arrabeh.

Seven Palestinians were killed - two of them members of the radical Islamic Jihad when Israeli tanks shelled their hideout. The 11-year-old sister of one of the militants in the house also died, Palestinian security officials said.

This story ran on page A21 of the Boston Globe on 9/13/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.