Wielding a stick and a carrot, Israel destroyed Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Gaza headquarters on Sunday, then said it might lift a siege that has kept him confined to the West Bank.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in a second concession in 48 hours, said Arafat had met Israel's terms for ending the siege in the town of Ramallah by arresting the suspected killers of far-right cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi last October.
Addressing soldiers fighting Israel's deadliest conflict for a generation, he said a Palestinian suicide bombing in a Jerusalem cafe that killed 11 Israelis on Saturday meant it was still too soon to lift the blockade.
"But at the end of the day I believe the conditions will exist in which we can do this," Sharon said. "I said once they were arrested I would let him leave. Once you achieve your demands you must carry out your commitments."
Lifting the siege imposed in mid-December after a spate of Palestinian militant attacks would allow Arafat to attend an Arab League summit in Beirut on March 27 and 28 that is due to discuss a Saudi proposal for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.
An Israeli political source said a formal decision to end the restrictions could be taken within days but that Arafat would need to make a separate request to travel to Beirut.
There was no immediate Palestinian reaction to Sharon's announcement, his second seeming concession ahead of a return to the region this week by U.S. Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni to try to establish a cease-fire after 17 months of fighting.
The Jerusalem blast on Saturday evening, just down the street from Sharon's official residence, came hard on the heels of a Palestinian shooting that killed two people, including a nine-month-old baby, in the Israeli seaside resort of Netanya.
Hours later, Israeli helicopter gunships slammed missile after missile into Arafat's seaside headquarters in Gaza City, a symbol of the Palestinian leader's quest for sovereignty.
The past week has been the bloodiest since the start of a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in September 2000, with a ferocious upsurge of tit-for-tat violence.
Five Palestinians and an Israel soldier were killed on Sunday, including two Palestinians that Israeli police sources said had been blown up in their car in the West Bank while apparently on their way to carry out an attack in Jerusalem.
Israeli police said a Palestinian gunman had also wounded a 13-year-old boy in an attack in the southern port of Ashdod. Radio reports said the man was arrested after his gun jammed.
The Saudi plan envisages full Arab recognition of Israel if the Jewish state established in 1948 withdraws fully from Arab lands it captured in the 1967 Middle East war. Arab League foreign ministers who discussed it in Cairo on Sunday said it could be Sharon's "last chance" for peace.
NO MORE SEVEN DAYS
Sharon said on Friday he had waived his demand for seven days of calm before talks on a U.S.-brokered truce plan could begin because an "extremely high level of terror" and Israel's stepped-up military offensive made "complete quiet" impossible.
"We will make every effort to reach a cease-fire. At the same time, we will continue our heightened activities against the terror infrastructure...as long as the terror continues," Sharon's office quoted him as telling his cabinet on Sunday.
His decision to row back on his truce terms had incensed right-wing elements in Israel's national unity coalition. The stance on besieging Arafat seemed likely to fuel yet more anger on the right, while placating a left pushing for peace moves.
Two previous missions by retired Marine Corps general Zinni ended in failure. But the United States has decided to re-engage in the face of mounting casualties on both sides and Sharon's vow to hit the Palestinians until they sue for peace.
"He is going to stay in the region and fight his way through this. We're not going to allow acts of violence to stop General Zinni from doing his work," Powell told CBS Television.
Zinni is due to travel to the region later in the week, before U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) arrives in Israel as part of a Middle East tour widely expected to focus on Washington's plans to raise the heat on Iraq in its "war on terror."
WRECKED HEADQUARTERS
Zeevi, who was Israel's tourism minister, was gunned down at a Jerusalem hotel in October in an attack that was claimed by the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) as revenge for Israel's killing of its leader last August.
Palestinian security forces arrested three of the suspects last month and a Palestinian security official, in a leak on Saturday that appeared timed to Zinni's visit, said a fourth suspect had also now been detained.
At Arafat's wrecked headquarters in Gaza, Palestinian security officers picked through a mass of debris left strewn across the room where Arafat has received foreign presidents and guests. His private office and bedroom were also destroyed.
There were no reports of injuries in the attack.
The militant Islamic group Hamas claimed responsibility for Saturday's suicide bombing at Jerusalem's Moment Cafe, a trendy watering hole which many customers had regarded as a safe haven due to its proximity to Sharon's heavily guarded residence.
Almost all of the dead were in their 20s.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group linked to Arafat's Fatah faction, said it had carried out the Netanya attack to avenge Israeli military strikes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
At least 1,019 Palestinians and 333 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian uprising began.
(China Daily March 11, 2002)
