Israeli Soldiers Take Control of Palestinian Town

RAMALLAH, West Bank â€”  Israeli forces took control of the West Bank town of Tulkarm today, the governor said, marking the largest raid of a Palestinian town in 16 months of fighting. Hours earlier, thousands of Palestinians marched to protest Israel’s blockade of their leader, Yasser Arafat.

Izzedine Sharif, the Palestinian governor of Tulkarm, said tanks entered the town from all directions before dawn, as four helicopters flew above. A Palestinian security official said about 100 tanks and armored personnel carriers participated in the raid.

Sharif said Israeli soldiers imposed a curfew, then moved from house to house, arresting dozens of suspected militants.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

Israeli troops have repeatedly entered Palestinian cities in the 16 months of bloodshed, taking control of some neighborhoods for limited periods. Today’s raid marked the first time that forces took up positions in an entire town.

Troops also surrounded the two adjacent Tulkarm and Nur esh Shams refugee camps, apparently preparing to enter, Sharif said.

The raid came in reprisal for an attack by a Palestinian militant on a banquet hall in Israel last week. The assailant killed six Israelis before being shot dead by police.

The gunman was a former Palestinian policeman and a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militia linked to Arafat’s Fatah movement.

In other reprisals for the banquet hall attack, Israeli tanks have surrounded Arafat’s headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, keeping the Palestinian Authority president confined there.

Another tank deployed to Ramallah to pressure Arafat got stuck in a narrow street Sunday and became the focus of a gun battle. Twelve Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were wounded.

The government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has confined Arafat to Ramallah since December, saying he will not be allowed to leave until the Palestinian Authority arrests the assassins of an Israeli Cabinet minister. Israel tightened its grip Friday, moving tanks and armored personnel carriers just outside the gates of Arafat’s office.

On Sunday, several hundred Palestinian journalists and academics who support Arafat’s Fatah movement marched to the Palestinian broadcasting center destroyed in an Israeli explosion a day earlier.

“Defend the Palestinian territories and defend our President Arafat,� said a Fatah leaflet distributed by the marchers.

In Gaza City, several thousand supporters marched to Arafat’s seaside compound, though he hasn’t been able to work there in nearly two months.