Hamas supporters defy Arafat

By Ibrahim Barzak, AP Writer

06 December 2001

Hundreds of Hamas supporters clashed with Palestinian police outside the home of the group\'s leader on Thursday, throwing stones, firing in the air and burning a police jeep in a first sign of resistance to Yasser Arafat\'s crackdown on Islamic militants.

The Palestinian leader is under growing pressure to rein in the Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups that have sent dozens of suicide bombers to Israel, including four this week. Israel told Arafat he had only a few hours to arrest leading militants or face a resumption of Israeli reprisals.

US President George W. Bush said Arafat must \"use everything in his power to prevent further terrorist attacks in Israel\" and that the Jewish state could not be expected to conduct negotiations under fire.

Egypt, meanwhile, launched a new mediation mission Thursday, sending its foreign minister, Ahmed Maher, to Israel and the Palestinian areas. Maher\'s sudden visit came even though Egypt has shunned high­profile ties with Israel since Ariel Sharon, a hard­liner, became Israel\'s prime minister in March.

Palestinian security officials said a total of 180 Islamic militants have been rounded up since the arrest sweep began Sunday. Some of the arrests were carried out overnight, though Palestinian officials would not give details.

Israel has complained that those detained were lower–level activists, and that the planners of attacks are still at large. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Wednesday he told Arafat he should act within 12 hours to arrest 36 leaders of the militant movements.

US envoys reportedly handed the names to Arafat in recent meetings.

In Gaza City, Palestinian police surrounded the home of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader and founder of Hamas, late on Wednesday evening. Police had said earlier this week that Yassin was under house arrest, but enforced the restrictions only Wednesday, barring all but his relatives from visiting and cutting his phone lines. It was Arafat\'s boldest move yet against Hamas.

In response, around 1,000 Hamas supporters rushed to Yassin\'s home, threw stones at police vans and officers on foot and set a police jeep on fire. In a stand­off that lasted for several hours, both sides occasionally fired automatic weapons in the air. At one point, Yassin briefly emerged from his home to quell rumors circulating among reporters that he had been snatched by Israeli commandos.

In another confrontation, Palestinian gunmen fired late Wednesday at a Jewish neighborhood to protest the arrest of a leading militant by Arafat\'s police. No one was hurt in the shooting from the West Bank town of Beit Jalla on Gilo, a Jewish neighborhood built on land Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed to Jerusalem.

The intense resistance was a hint of the trouble Arafat is likely to encounter if he bends to U.S. and Israeli demands to sharpen his crackdown.

\"We came to show our solidarity with our sheikh and to reflect our rejection of any thought of political detention, and to reiterate our commitment to continue the intefadeh resistance,\" said a protester outside Yassin\'s house who gave his name only as Ahmed.

Arafat\'s moves follow two days of Israeli military strikes which Sharon said were aimed at forcing him to take tough action against terrorists.

Retaliating for the weekend suicide bombings that killed 25 people in Jerusalem and Haifa, Israeli warplanes targeted Palestinian security and police buildings on Monday and Tuesday, and the Israeli Cabinet declared that Arafat\'s Palestinian Authority is an \"entity that supports terrorism.\" Another suicide bomber blew himself up in central Jerusalem on Wednesday, lightly injuring two people.

Up to now, Arafat has hesitated to confront Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the militant groups opposing peace with Israel, for fear of setting off a civil war. Israel charged that Arafat was responsible for the bombings because he had not taken steps to rein in the extremist groups.

Peres said Arafat called him to complain that Israeli restrictions were preventing him from moving his forces around. After the weekend bombings, Israeli forces cut off West Bank towns and banned Palestinian traffic on West Bank roads. Also, Israeli helicopters destroyed Arafat\'s helicopters in a Gaza hangar, marooning him in Ramallah in the West Bank.

Restarting his truce mission, U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni called Arafat and demanded that he crack down on the militant groups, said Palestinian Planning Minister Nabil Shaath.

Later, Zinni met Sharon, who told him \"only pressure on Arafat will bring him to make a strategic decision to abandon the path of terror and carry out all of Israel\'s demands and his commitments,\" a statement from Sharon\'s office said.

Zinni scheduled meetings Thursday with Arafat and Peres.

Zinni arrived November 26 to work for implementation of a truce accord negotiated by CIA director George Tenet in May. It called for Palestinians to stop violence against Israelis, arrest suspected terrorists and move against violent groups. Israel was to pull its troops away from Palestinian centers, stop military operations inside Palestinian areas and halt targeted killings of suspected militants.