Reuters
August 9, 2001

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (Reuters) -- Israeli police seized the main Palestinian headquarters in and around East Jerusalem on Friday in a deeply symbolic campaign to assert control over the city after a Palestinian suicide bombing killed 15 people.

Israeli fighter jets, described by the Palestinians as F-16s, also flattened a police post in the West Bank and tanks levelled a Gaza Strip police position in response to the bombing at a West Jerusalem pizza restaurant packed with families.

The suicide attack was the worst in Jerusalem since a Palestinian uprising erupted over 10 months ago after peace talks stalled. Israel's takeover of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's East Jerusalem headquarters, known as Orient House, and nine other offices nearby was sure to anger the Palestinians and provoke a strong reaction.

Dozens of Israeli police swarmed around the ornate entrance of Orient House and raised a blue and white Israeli flag at its peaked roof. Entering the building, they detained seven Palestinian security guards, confiscated documents and found an Uzi submachine gun, a police spokesman said.

"The activity is meant to force the Palestinians to fulfil their commitments, to fight terror, to fight violence and to honour the agreements they signed," Israeli Cabinet Secretary Gideon Saar told Israel Radio.

"At the moment the Palestinian Authority has no brakes and is doing nothing with very specific, pointed information passed on to it from our security forces. There is nothing that stops the different Palestinian terrorist organisations on their way to carry out attacks in Israel," Saar added.

An Israeli diplomatic official said cabinet ministers decided at a late-night meeting to set up new Israeli police stations in East Jerusalem and uproot Palestinian security services operating in its environs.

Hopes of ending bloodshed buried

The latest escalation in Jerusalem -- which each claims as their capital -- appeared to bury hopes of ending the bloodshed in which more than 650 people have been killed.

"This is a very dangerous measure. We will defend these institutions in Jerusalem, and Israel is mistaken by thinking that by occupying certain institutions in Jerusalem it will Judaise this occupied city," Palestinian lawmaker Hatem Abdel-Qader said of Israel's takeover of the Orient House.

Palestinian political sources said President Yasser Arafat was contacting European and US diplomats to enlist their help in persuading Israel to cede control of the buildings. Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East War and annexed it in a move not recognised internationally. It views the entire city as its capital.

The Palestinians want the eastern part of the city to be the capital of a future state, and Orient House has served as their municipal and symbolic centre.

Israeli troops also stormed the home of the governor of Abu Dis, a Palestinian village on the edge of East Jerusalem, and took over what it said were Palestinian security posts.

Palestinian witnesses said Israeli forces were demolishing the governor's headquarters as well as Palestinian intelligence offices in the nearby village of Eizaryeh.

Major-General Dan Harel, head of the Israeli army's operations department, said Palestinians in these headquarters were not carrying out their duties and sometimes participated in "terrorist" activities.

"We think we have to act against the Palestinians to make it clear to them that we won't accept this phenomenon and also to take from them the ability to act in the Jerusalem area and the West Bank in general," Harel told Israel Radio.

The army also confirmed the attack on a police station on the edge of Ramallah in the West Bank. A military official said the attack was carried out with fighter planes.

Palestinian security sources said F-16 jets fired two missiles at the police station, which burst into flames and was destroyed. It had been evacuated earlier on Thursday and no casualties were reported.

Israel last fired from F-16 warplanes in May, after a Palestinian bomber killed six people outside a shopping mall in the coastal city of Netanya. At least 12 Palestinians died in those raids.