Israel to step up offensive against Palestinians

JERUSALEM -- The Israeli military was preparing a "crushing and decisive" response to recent Palestinian attacks, and it could include an extended stay by Israeli troops in Palestinian areas, a senior defense official said Saturday.

Israeli troops have poured into several Palestinian towns and cities in recent days, and as of Saturday night, remained in at least six places in the West Bank, where strict curfews were in force.

In two refugee camps on the edge of Nablus, Israeli fire wounded five Palestinians who were out during a temporary lifting of the curfew, Palestinian witnesses said. The army said the curfew was not lifted in Nablus and that it fired tear gas and rubber bullets at Palestinians who attacked soldiers with rocks and some live fire.

Other West Bank towns occupied by Israeli troops were mostly quiet Saturday.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government has endorsed a plan to gradually reoccupy Palestinian land until suicide bombings and shootings stop. The move came after a bloody week that left 33 Israelis and 18 Palestinians dead, leading U.S. President George W. Bush to put off an address that was to outline his proposal for moving toward a Palestinian state.

'More massive action'

Amos Yaron, director general of the Defense Ministry, suggested that the current operation could be even larger in scale than the six-week sweep through the West Bank that ended in May.

"This terrorism cannot be allowed to continue. Our response has to be crushing and decisive," Yaron said in an interview on Israel radio. "We have to take much more massive action than we have up until now."

"If what we have done was not enough, so we'll do it with even more force," he said. "If we have to stay in the territories for more time, we'll do it for more time."

During the earlier campaign, the Israeli forces killed or arrested scores of suspected Palestinian militants, shattered Palestinian infrastructure, and kept Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat imprisoned in his battered office headquarters for more than a month.

A reserve brigade would be called up on Sunday to help the regular troops in their hunt for Palestinian militants, the Israeli army spokesman said Saturday.

Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer "expressed regret" over a tank shooting Friday in Jenin that left four Palestinians dead, three of them children, ages 6 to 12. Ben-Eliezer called for an investigation into the incident, his media adviser Yarden Vatikay said.

Jenin residents rushed to the market Friday to replenish supplies amid rumors that the 3-day-old military curfew had been lifted temporarily. When troops searching the area for an explosives laboratory spotted a group of Palestinians heading toward them in violation of the curfew, a tank fired two shells to deter them, the army said.

Jenin was calm Saturday, with Israeli tanks withdrawing from an area near a high school so students could enter and take final exams.

Other West Bank towns occupied by Israeli troops were also quiet Saturday.

In Bethlehem, shopkeepers swung open their doors and vegetable vendors lined the streets while the army curfew was lifted for three hours. Shoppers jammed the city's dusty streets to stock up on supplies. The army usually lifts the curfew for a few hours every third day.

In Nablus, fire from an Israeli tank damaged the gate to An-Najah University, but no casualties were reported.

Near Nablus on Friday, a group of Israeli settlers went on a rampage as they returned from the funerals of a mother and her three sons, killed in a Palestinian attack on the settlement of Itamar.

After the funerals, the settlers drove toward the village of Hawara, and killed a Palestinian man and torched a home and a car, Palestinian villagers said.

Israeli police arrested a 27-year-old Jewish settler in connection with the shooting death, police said Saturday.