Israeli Military Bears Down on Palestinian Revolt; 12 Die

RAMALLAH, West Bank —  The Israeli army Sunday unleashed antitank missiles and combat helicopters in a bid to beat back Palestinian forces who waged fierce gun battles as escalating violence spread for the first time into Israel proper.

A fourth day of fighting claimed 12 more lives, including that of an Israeli paramilitary officer who bled to death awaiting rescue from comrades pinned down by Palestinian gunfire.

In all, 29 Palestinians have been killed and more than 700 wounded since the visit Thursday of a right-wing Jewish politician to a disputed Jerusalem shrine inflamed religious and nationalist passions.

As Israel increased its response and its tanks rumbled into position near Palestinian cities, progress was reported late Sunday on efforts to achieve a truce. Palestinian officials said they had accepted an Israeli offer to cease fire, but each side said it was waiting until today to verify that the other side meant it. And the White House, attempting to prevent the violence from spiraling out of control, said both sides had agreed to a U.S.-led “fact-finding” inquiry to examine the events of the last four days.

All of this came only after Israel brought its military might to bear on the widening Palestinian rebellion.

Helicopter gunships opened fire on armed Palestinian forces menacing the Jewish settlement of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip, routinely the site of the worst mayhem, and at Joseph’s Tomb, also the site of a small Jewish enclave outside the West Bank city of Nablus.

As the firepower on both sides escalated despite a U.S.-led diplomatic frenzy aimed at calming the tensions, Israeli and Palestinian leaders continued to trade blame, each accusation hammering another nail in the coffin of Middle East peacemaking.

“No Palestinian wants to be injured, but we will not continue to live under occupation,” said Col. Jibril Rajoub, the top Palestinian security official in the West Bank.

Israel’s acting foreign minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami, called on Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to exercise his “unquestionable authority over his people and security forces” to stop the violence.

“The Palestinians must concentrate on making the hard decisions [to achieve a peace agreement] and not on gaining points in world public opinion,” Ben-Ami told reporters in Tel Aviv.

But others wonder if Palestinian rage has not taken on a life of its own that even Arafat would have trouble squelching.

Israeli officials often liken Arafat’s ability to control his people to the turning on and off of a spigot. He could restore calm “in minutes” if he wanted to, they say. Following a wave of deadly demonstrations in May, however, Israel’s military intelligence assessed that Arafat sometimes loses control, if even temporarily. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, the former commander of the West Bank, describes Arafat as both the arsonist and the fireman--lighting the flame and then struggling to put it out, though it may take awhile.

The visit of right-wing leader Ariel Sharon to the disputed Temple Mount section of Jerusalem’s Old City triggered the violence, but deep anger over a flagging peace process has undoubtedly kept it going. Known to Arabs as Haram al Sharif, the area has come to symbolize the largest obstacle to reconciling Muslims and Jews.

At the funeral Sunday in Ramallah of 16-year-old Nizar Eideh, killed in rioting Saturday, hundreds of mourners celebrated the youth’s death as martyrdom for the cause of defending Haram al Sharif and the Al Aqsa mosque.

“God will reward martyrs!” shouted the cleric leading prayers, his voice strained with emotion. “Al Aqsa deserves to have people die for her. This is our pride! This false peace will get us nowhere. Peace negotiations will not bring us our rights.”

At Joseph’s Tomb, Palestinian forces, some in black ski masks, took up positions on rooftops around the tiny barbed-wire compound where Jews believe the biblical patriarch Joseph is buried. They pummeled an Israeli military contingent with submachine-gun fire, wounding one officer inside. He died from his wounds before he could be rescued, an Israeli army spokesman said. Three Palestinians, including a 10-year-old, were also killed, Palestinian officials said.

Bloodshed that had been primarily confined to Palestinian territories or Jerusalem reached Israel’s northern Galilee region Sunday.

Thousands of Arabs who live within Israel’s borders joined the fray, chanting “Death to Jews” and storming through the towns of Nazareth and Umm al Fahm. They blocked main northern highways just as Jewish Israelis were making their way home after the new year holiday weekend.

“It is our duty to defend the Muslim holy sites,” Abdul-Malik Dehamshe, a member of the Israeli parliament who is also an Islamic activist, declared as he marched with other demonstrators.

Even in the Israeli port of Jaffa near Tel Aviv, once a predominantly Arab town before the 1948 founding of the Jewish state, protesters threw stones at passing motorists and blocked a main road south.

The level and intensity of these last days of violence have stunned many people here, waking them out of a degree of complacency over the slow pace of finding a definitive peace settlement to 52 years of Arab-Israeli conflict.

“We can clearly see the very thin ice we’ve been walking on for the last few years,” Israel’s pro-peace justice minister, Yossi Beilin, said.

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* SHOCKING IMAGE

The sight of a boy caught in a cross-fire sickens both Israelis and Palestinians. A16