Later that day Sharon struck back with unprecedented fury. F-16 fighter jets, deployed for the first time since the Six Day War, roared out of their base in Tel Nof, south of Tel Aviv, and fired rockets at a half-dozen targets in the West Bank and Gaza. Twelve Palestinian policemen died in a missile strike that turned the government headquarters in Nablus into rubble. Warplanes also attacked Palestinian Coast Guard bases in the Gaza Strip, injuring 10. But punishing Yasir Arafat’s men did little to stop the ever more savage violence. “Sharon thought he’d destroy our will and divide us,” one guerrilla roared from the back of a truck draped in green Hamas flags as the dead policemen were borne through Nablus on Saturday. “But we are one body, one heart. Not even F-16s can destroy our resistance.”
It’s a message the new prime minister may not be hearing. As the intifada enters its ninth month with no end in sight, Israel’s only strategy seems to be to inflict more pain on its enemy. Most Israeli military analysts now recognize that the Army can’t quash the Palestinian rebellion, yet Sharon’s hard-line government keeps escalating. Each new step-up in tactics–assassinations of intifada leaders, helicopter- borne strikes, daily invasions of Palestinian-controlled territory–seems to radicalize the Palestinian population further. And it appears to be marginalizing Arafat and his Palestinian Authority.
Without sufficient weaponry to compete with Israel’s vast arsenal, Palestinians are increasingly embracing the terror tactics of Islamic extremists such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas. In a proto-state without a real army–Palestinians possess little more than smuggled mortars and rifles–suicide bombers may be the only tool for inflicting the kind of damage an F-16 can do, Palestinian leaders say. In Gaza refugee camps such as Khan Yunis, which suffer almost daily Israeli assaults, nearly every shack now flies a green Hamas flag, and suicide bombers are seen as heroes. The conflict is rapidly metastasizing into an ugly new kind of war–one that pits state-of-the-art military technology against a fanatical willingness to shed blood.
The rapid eclipse of Arafat’s authority–he is still considered the only one who can make peace–is increasing pressure on Washington to step in. President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell, who have sought to stay out while the violence rages, have mostly issued calls to end the fighting that seem to fall on deaf ears. Powell, who flies to Africa this week, signaled a willingness to see Arafat if the Palestinian leader stops the violence, as recommended in a report to be released this week by a commission headed by former senator George Mitchell. Whether the meeting takes place depends on “how fast and completely he [Arafat] is willing to do the things required,” a senior U.S. official said Saturday.
Judging from Sharon’s latest escalation, Arafat may not have much time to act. For the past month Israel has launched pre-emptive ground assaults aimed at rooting out militants before they can attack. Tanks and troops have rolled into Palestinian-controlled territory almost daily, violating the terms of the 1993 Oslo peace accords. The raids have wrecked police posts, destroyed agricultural fields and knocked down houses in Gaza refugee camps. Last week Israeli soldiers rained fire on a police guard post in the West Bank town of Betunya as five security men were preparing their dinner. The men were riddled with bullets and died instantly. The next day, Israel admitted that it had killed the men in error; the intended victims were members of Arafat’s elite presidential guard, Force 17, who weren’t present that evening. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres later apologized for the mistake, explaining, “terrible things happen in war.”
Friday evening’s missile strike against Palestinian Authority headquarters in Nablus was no mistake. The Israeli Air Force reportedly was targeting Mahmoud Abu Hanud, a leading Hamas guerrilla who was being detained in a cell near the police chief’s office. Israel gave warning of the attack, but its fighter jets taking off from Tel Nof can reach any target in the West Bank and Gaza in 90 seconds–and some inside didn’t have time to escape. The 12 who died were ordinary cops. Abu Hanud was lightly injured in the attack–and later escaped from a hospital in Nablus. “For us it’s an announcement of war against the Palestinian people,” says Hussam Khader, a local leader of the PLO’s Fatah wing.
There is certainly no shortage of would-be martyrs. Beneath a searing sun in Nablus on Saturday, thousands of angry Palestinians marched in a funeral procession for the dead policemen. Fatah militiamen fired bursts from their AK-47s into the air as masked Hamas fighters whipped the crowd into a frenzy. “Sharon may have a thousand planes and a thousand bombs,” said one activist. “But the Palestinians have a thousand who are ready to be martyrs.” And who, together with their Israeli counterparts in hatred, may make peace impossible.
Correction
In our May 28 story on Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes against targets in the West Bank and Gaza (“Technology vs. Terror,” INTERNATIONAL), we said that the Israeli Air Force had used F-16 fighter jets for the first time since 1967. In fact, Israel did not acquire F-16s until 1980.
