RAMALLAH, West Bank, Aug 14 (Agence France-Presse, AFP) - Israel launched one of its most daring raids of the 10-month Palestinian uprising in the early hours of Tuesday, for the first time sending tanks and bulldozers into the heart of a Palestinian town.

Tanks and bulldozers rolled into the northern West Bank town of Jenin while Israeli forces also attacked and seriously injured a member of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's elite Force 17 guards in Ramallah to the south.

Jenin deputy governor Hyder Irshid told AFP that 10 Israeli tanks and two bulldozers ahd invaded Jenin, demolishing the police headquarters in the autonomous Palestinian town.

He said heavy fighting had broken out in the town, although local television reported that official Palestinian security forces were not involved. The Israeli forces pulled out some two hours later, according to Palestinian security forces. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Local television said that resistance to the Israeli show of force came from Arafat's Fatah movement and other Palestinian gunmen.

In a parallel attack in Ramallah, a 22-yaer-old member of Force 17, Hamada Barsh, was seriously injured when Israeli forces shelled his car, witnesses said.

Barsh was rushed to hospital in Ramallah and was said to be in serious condition.

The Jenin attack was the first time during the current unrest that Israeli ground forces had entered an autonomous Palestinian town. Israeli tanks frequently make short incursions into the Gaza Strip to destroy Palestinian security positions.

Israel has also carried out a series of targeted assassinations of Palestinian militants deemed a security threat, despite strong international condemnation. Israeli forces have killed nine members of the radical Palestinian group Hamas in the last month, while a similar attack in Ramallah two weeks ago almost killed the Fatah West Bank secretary general Marwan Barghuti.

The twin attacks appeared to be Israel's delayed retaliation for a Palestinian suicide bombing Sunday near the northern town of Haifa which injured 15 people.

The suicide bomber, who blew himself up in a cafe in Kiryat Motzkin, near Haifa on Sunday, came from the Qabatiya refugee camp near Jenin, according to the radical group that sent him, Islamic Jihad.

The anti-Israeli group said he had been a member of the Palestinian military intelligence services until about six weeks ago.

Israel launched swift retaliation on Palestinian targets after an earlier devastating suicide bombing in Jerusalem, last Thursday, which killed 16 people, including the bomber.

Its warplanes pulverised the Palestinian police headquarters in Ramallah while Israeli police occupied Orient House, the unofficial Palestinian headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem.

The closure of the building, seen by Palestinians as their seat of governement for a future independent state, caused outcry in the Arab world and concern in Western capitals.

The United States called it a "serious political escalation".

On Monday Palestinians closed down shops and businesses in a general strike to protest against Israel's seizure of Orient House, their highly symbolic headquarters in Arab east Jerusalem, as diplomatic efforts to revive a failed ceasefire gained pace.

Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres prepared for possible direct talks with the Palestinians after getting a limited go-ahead from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to try to put a halt to the 10 months of bloodshed.

Shops in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem were shuttered as the Palestinians launched their largest labour strike so far of the intifada, or uprising, to protest the closure of Orient House.

Israeli police again clashed with protestors outside the building, snatching Palestinian flags waved by some of the 200 demonstrators, and ripping up banners saying: "No peace without justice for the Palestinians."

For Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government, the three-story house was an arm of the Palestinian leadership that has refused to crack down on militants attacking Israel.

Israeli police drove the Palestinians out Friday to punish them for a suicide bombing and to reassert Israel's claim to all of Jerusalem. But Sharon's action has created another security headache for Israel and has added the most important Palestinian political outpost in the city to the list of combustible disputes over Jerusalem.

A small band of Palestinian protesters scuffled with police for a fourth straight day Monday, and 10 demonstrators were hauled away. When protesters unfurled a Palestinian flag, police charged into the crowd and ripped it away. Police tossed a stun grenade at one point, driving back the fewer than 100 people, a mix of Palestinian, European and American demonstrators.

``Sharon is trying to squeeze us out of Jerusalem, but we will keep coming back here every day,'' said Abdul Razek, who works as a political consultant at Orient House and lives nearby.

After a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 15 people and wounded 100 in a west Jerusalem pizzeria last Thursday, Sharon's government moved quickly against Palestinian buildings and security offices in and around east Jerusalem.

Israeli police kicked several sleepy security guards out of Orient House around 2 a.m. Friday, and by daybreak, the blue-and-white Israeli flag was flying above it.

Israel has pulled down its flag, deeming it too provocative, and has not said how long it will keep control of the building. Police said Monday the closure order was good for six months, but could be extended.

Israel has claimed all of Jerusalem since capturing the eastern half of the city in the 1967 Mideast war, while the Palestinians are insisting on a capital in traditionally Arab eastern sector.

Israel also saw its action as a non-lethal way to respond to the suicide bombing, the second deadliest attack in more than 10 months of Mideast violence.

``There was a terrible act of terror in Jerusalem, and we have to tell the people who are responsible for it: 'stop it,''' said Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. ``In our retaliation, nobody was killed, but signals, serious signals, were given to the Palestinians.''

In a statement Sunday, Sharon's government accused Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority of committing ``many serious offenses in Jerusalem,'' though under current agreements, it is not supposed to be conducting political activity in the city until its status is negotiated.

``Terror activity and incitement will not be allowed to return to Jerusalem and the Palestinian Authority will not be allowed to erode, unhindered, our sovereignty in Jerusalem,'' a Cabinet statement said.

But by taking Orient House, Israel has further elevated its importance in the minds of many Palestinians, and must now defend an empty building in the heart of a Palestinian neighborhood.

Israeli police said Monday they were no longer stationed inside Orient House - though dozens, perhaps hundreds, are standing watch and blocking off surrounding streets.

``By sending a message that any symbol of Palestinian sovereignty in Jerusalem would be attacked, the Israelis went too far,'' said Hanan Ashrawi, a prominent Palestinian spokeswoman.

Built by the wealthy Husseini family at the end of the 19th century, Orient House served as a hotel for decades before Faisal Husseini, a descendant of the original owner and a leading Palestinian figure in his own right, turned it into a center for academics and aid groups.

It became a base of operations for Palestinian negotiators when Mideast peace talks were launched in Madrid, Spain, in 1991, and grew into the unofficial Palestinian political center in east Jerusalem.

Despite Israeli objections, foreign leaders and diplomats would regularly visit Orient House for talks with Husseini. Israel's then-Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu tried but failed to shut down Orient House in 1999, and Palestinians viewed it as part of a future government complex in east Jerusalem.

Husseini died of a heart attack May 31, and tens of thousands of Palestinians marched in a funeral cortege from Orient House, and symbolically laid claim to east Jerusalem.

Mid-East Realities

www.middleeast.org

Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/8/342.htm