Israel has banned Yasser Arafat from leaving the West Bank town of Ramallah after a government decision to cut contacts with the Palestinian leader, Israeli justice minister Meir Sheetrit said on Thursday. “Israel will not attack him personally but he will stay where he is,” Sheetrit told Israeli military radio hours after the cabinet decision was endorsed following a deadly bus ambush and a double suicide bombing that killed 10 Israelis.
General Ron Kitrey, the chief spokesman of the Israeli Army, meanwhile told the radio that the army had occupied three positions around Ramallah. “We also have no intention to bring down the Palestinian authority or to harm Yasser Arafat physically or even to expel him,” Kitrey said.
Arafat was bunkered in Ramallah on Thursday when Israeli tanks deployed around 200 meters from his offices, sources said. To travel, Arafat must ask permission from Israeli authorities who control the skies over West Bank and Gaza. A senior Israeli official said on Saturday that any request by Arafat to travel outside Ramallah will be examined and that Israel reserves itself the right to reject it or accept it according to the situation.
Israel launched its largest air strikes yet by F-16 fighter-bombers overnight after an ambush by Palestinian hardliners killed 10 Israelis in West Bank, while two Palestinian suicide bombers injured four Israelis in Gaza.
Israel announced after an emergency cabinet that lasted late into the night that it was severing all ties with Arafat, calling him irrelevant and pledging to go into Palestinian areas itself to hunt down terrorists.
Bureau Report