Israeli tanks enter Arafat compound after bus bomb

8.30am

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Israeli tanks have rolled into Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's headquarters, hours after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed five people on a crowded Israeli bus in Tel Aviv.

The Tel Aviv blast followed an explosion in northern Israel on Wednesday which killed an Israeli policeman and ended a six-week lull in suicide bombings, raising fears in Israel of a new wave of such attacks and again dimming peace hopes.

Just hours after the bombing -- which wounded about 50 people and sprayed body parts across a busy street at lunch hour -- Arafat aides said tanks entered his compound in Ramallah and opened fire from heavy machineguns. Arafat was unhurt.

"Tanks and jeeps are inside the compound and surrounding our office from all sides. There is fierce shooting. Two of our men have been injured, but the president is fine," one of Arafat's bodyguards said by telephone from inside the building.

"We fear they will enter the president's office," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said after speaking to Arafat by telephone at the headquarters in Ramallah, the main Palestinian political and commercial centre 20 kilometres north of Jerusalem.

Some Israelis have called for the army to remove Arafat and exile him from Palestinian areas, but Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has stopped short of doing so, apparently held back by US and European pressure to avoid such action.

Palestinian officials said tanks rumbled into the compound outside Arafat's sandbagged offices which have already been badly damaged in earlier attacks in two years of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

An army spokesman said the army was engaged "in an operational activity and has raised the state of alert" but declined further comment.

Shooting appeared to ease shortly after it began, but flared sporadically.

Israel accuses Arafat of doing too little to prevent militants carrying out suicide bombings and other attacks on Israelis in the uprising against Israeli occupation that began in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in September 2000.

At least 1,545 Palestinians and 594 Israelis have been killed in the nearly two years of violence.

Tanks have entered the presidential compound on several occasions and have demolished buildings around Arafat's office.

In a separate incident, Israeli soldiers shot dead a 10-year-old Palestinian boy who was stoning an Israeli tank in the West Bank town of al-Bireh, Palestinian doctors and witnesses said. The army had no immediate comment.

In Tel Aviv, ambulances raced to tree-lined Allenby Street where the bus exploded near cafes and restaurants and the main synagogue in Israel's commercial hub.

"I heard a massive blast. I ran outside where customers were eating lunch. I saw people escaping from the bus, jumping out of the windows covered in blood," said cafe owner Ofer Menachem. "I saw soldiers and women covered in blood shouting and screaming."

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which defied calls by Arafat's Palestinian Authority for an end to attacks against Israeli civilians.

The Palestinian Authority condemned the bombing, saying it gives the Israeli government a "pretext to kill and suppress".

The ground next to the bus was scattered with pools of blood and the belongings of the passengers. Ambulance crews ferried bleeding passengers, some with their clothes blown off their bodies, to hospitals. Some were badly burnt.

Police said five people were killed and about 50 hurt after the suicide bomber blew himself up at the front of the bus.

A woman who said she had been standing next to the bomber before disembarking said he wore a buttoned-up jacket, had black hair and a moustache and "had a very strange look on his face".

Witnesses said the bus exploded moments after picking up passengers at the bus stop. Passengers crawled out to safety through the shattered windows.

In London, the Foreign Office said the casualties included two Britons, both believed to be students.

"We can confirm that two British nationals have been injured in the Tel Aviv bus bomb incident," a Foreign Office spokeswoman said. "We are not able to discuss the nature of their injuries but we can confirm that next-of-kin are aware, and consular staff in Tel Aviv have offered assistance."

Sharon convened his security cabinet on Thursday night to consider what action to take following the attack.

Israel blamed the bombing on Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, whose position has been undermined by the refusal of Islamic militant groups to heed calls to end suicide attacks.

Officials in the militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements hailed the bombings and said they reflected the Palestinians' resilience to fight occupation despite Israel's military control over most of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Authority said the Tel Aviv bombing and all other attacks on civilians contradicted Palestinian national interests and gave Sharon a pretext for further military action.

US President George W. Bush said at the White House: "We strongly condemn terror...All parties must do everything they can to reject and stop violence."

- REUTERS

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