Fierce Israeli strikes as Palestinian bomber hits settlement

AP Special CorrespondentJERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel pushed ahead with its campaign of intense strikes all over the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Thursday, conducting sweeps in refugee camps and killing 12 Palestinians. A Palestinian suicide bomber attacked a West Bank settlement, while two other bombing attempts were foiled.

Israeli troops stormed through two West Bank refugee camps before dawn and rocketed a police station after nightfall in one of Gaza's most crowded camps, sending Palestinian civilians running for cover. In the biblical West Bank town of Bethlehem, Israeli airstrikes on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's local headquarters hit so hard they blew open bolted doors in nearby homes.

Israeli leaders said the campaign was aimed at forcing the Palestinians to stop terror attacks, but there was no sign of that on Thursday.

A Palestinian suicide bomber walked into a Jewish settlement's hotel complex and blew himself up in the lobby, injuring four people and sending canned goods and cereal boxes flying in the adjoining supermarket.

Another would-be suicide bomber, at a trendy Jerusalem cafe, was thwarted when the cafe owner, a waiter and a customer jumped him, shoved him outside and grabbed his bag after they saw wires dangling from it. "Who, me?" the man asked when confronted, cafe owner Gabi Aldoratz told Israel radio.

At a shopping center in Pardes Hanna, a city in Israel's north, a resident spotted a suspicious object and called police. As a bomb disposal team approached, the bomb exploded, police said. No one was hurt.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, stung by unprecedented criticism from the Bush administration, responded that the conflict was "imposed on Israel by the Palestinian Authority and its leader."

"Israel has never declared war on the Palestinians. Israel fights back against terror organizations in the framework of its right of self-defense. He who started this war has the power to stop it, but continues to prefer a war of terrorism," Sharon's office said in a statement.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Colin Powell said of Sharon's policies: "if you declare war on the Palestinians and think you can solve the problem by seeing how many Palestinians can be killed, I don't know that leads us anywhere."

Powell on Thursday pulled back from his rebuke, saying Sharon was "reasonable" in wanting to reduce violence before making peace moves. He said Israel was faced with a legitimate self-defense situation but "they have to be very careful with the means they use to defend their people."

A defiant Arafat insisted Palestinians would not be cowed by the escalating Israeli strikes.

"No one can shake the Palestinians," he told reporters in the West Bank town of Ramallah on Thursday, hours after Israel fired missiles at his headquarters complex for the third night in a row. "If the Israelis believe that they can frighten them by tanks or by missiles or by Apaches (helicopter gunships), then they are mistaken."

The suicide bombing that injured four Israelis, one of them seriously, took place at the entrance to the Ariel settlement, the West Bank's second largest. A radical PLO group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, claimed responsibility.

Helicopters later fired three missiles into PFLP headquarters in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, destroying the single-story building, eyewitnesses said. The army said helicopters attacked two police stations in Beit Hanoun, but said nothing about the PFLP offices.

The thwarted suicide bombing in Jerusalem took place just hours earlier. Police chief Mickey Levy said the Palestinian had clearly intended to carry out a suicide attack.

"I can't say anything more, other than to say we had a miracle here," Aldoratz, the cafe owner, told Israel radio.

Sharon ordered the military strikes, among the most intense and wide-ranging of the 17-month-old conflict, after more than two dozen Israelis were killed last weekend in a string of Palestinian attacks.

In the West Bank, about 80 tanks and armored vehicles entered the town of Tulkarem late Wednesday and surrounded the adjacent refugee camps of Tulkarem and Nur Shams, meeting sharp resistance from dozens of Palestinian gunmen, witnesses said. Twenty-four hours later, gunmen and soldiers were still exchanging fire.

"We had to get into the refugee camps, which are laboratories of terror," said a brigade commander, Col. Yair Golan. "They should know we can reach everywhere -- there's no refuge for them."

Nine Palestinians were killed in the fighting, including a rescue worker, Palestinians said.

In the West Bank village of Siris, Israeli forces killed a leader of the militant Islamic Jihad, Mohammed Anani, 27, who tried to shoot at soldiers as they approached his home, witnesses said. Anani had been wanted by Israel for involvement in suicide bombings.

Also Thursday, Israeli warplanes fired missiles at a Gaza City complex that had been hit many times before. After Thursday's strike, only two of 25 buildings in the compound remained standing. The missiles sent rubble and glass flying hundreds of yards, and eight people were wounded. Children at a nearby school ran from the area.

Two Palestinians were killed in gunbattles with Israeli troops in central and northern Gaza on Thursday, Palestinian doctors said. Also Thursday, Israeli gunboats fired missiles at a Palestinian police roadblock near the Gaza City coast and wounded 13 policemen, three critically, Palestinian security officials said.

Throughout Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinian police closed roads around security installations Thursday and evacuated schools and government ministries for fear of more air strikes. After dark Thursday in the West Bank town of Dura, Israel hit the headquarters of Force 17, an elite Palestinian force, but no one was inside. Helicopters also struck the local headquarters of Fatah in nearby Yatta, the military said.