Israeli troops enter Ramallah

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Israeli tanks and troops charged into Ramallah before sunrise Monday, surrounding the compound of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and arresting 20 suspected militants in searches throughout the city.\nThe latest Israeli incursion into Palestinian territory came on a day when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was scheduled to meet President Bush at the White House.\nPalestinian police on Sunday arrested a senior leader of the militant group Islamic Jihad, which carried out a suicide attack last Wednesday that killed 17 Israelis.\nSheik Abdullah Shami, the Islamic Jihad leader in the Gaza Strip, was arrested in his neighborhood in Gaza City, group officials said. Arafat's leadership issued orders to arrest Islamic Jihad members after the Wednesday bombing.\nShami had boasted late last week that the Palestinian Authority was too debilitated to arrest him. Weakened by Israeli raids and political divisions among the Palestinians, the Authority still has thousands of police and security officials. Shami's wife, Rida, said after his arrest that he was with one bodyguard when he was taken into custody.\nIn Ramallah, the Israeli raid was aimed at arresting Palestinian suspects, and the soldiers surrounded Arafat's compound to prevent Palestinian gunmen from seeking refuge there, the army said. The military did not attack the compound itself, as it did last Thursday, when it blew up three buildings in retaliation for the Palestinian suicide bombing a day earlier.\nArafat was inside the battered compound Monday and was unharmed, Palestinian officials said.\nOne Palestinian man was killed and two were wounded in exchanges of fire in the streets of Ramallah, Palestinian doctors said. Two soldiers were also wounded, the army said.\n"This operation is part of our continuous effort to root out terrorism," Israeli government spokesman Arie Mekel said. He called it a "short-term" operation, but declined to be more specific.\nThe incursion came a day after Arafat announced a revamped Cabinet, and Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said Sharon's intention was "to prevent the reform process." The new Cabinet was to meet at the compound on Monday, but could not because of the Israeli move.\n"He wants to weaken the Palestinian Authority and to destroy the Palestinian infrastructure," Abed Rabbo said.\nThe incursion began around 4 a.m. Monday when tanks, armored personnel carriers, jeeps and infantry on foot entered Ramallah, which is just a few miles north of Jerusalem.\nOutside Arafat's compound, the size of a city block, the army blocked roads with earthen barricades. Several tanks and armored personnel took up positions in the streets.\nAt an apartment building near the compound, small explosions rang out periodically, followed by puffs of white smoke. The cause of the blasts was not clear, though in the past, Israeli soldiers have used small explosive devices to break down doors.\nAfter daybreak, the streets remained deserted aside from the troops. The army declared Ramallah a closed military zone and prevented journalists from entering the city. The army took over a building that houses several international television organizations.\nSome journalists, who were in Ramallah before the army entered, tried to approach Arafat's compound. Soldiers shouted at them to leave the area and stop taking pictures.\nThe Israeli army said 27 suspects were arrested in Ramallah, and additional arrests were made in other nighttime raids in other parts of the West Bank.\nIn a follow-up to a massive military incursion in the West Bank that ended a month ago, Israeli troops have been staging almost daily in-and-out raids in Palestinian cities, towns and villages.\nIn most instances, the troops have gone in for only a few hours to arrest suspects based on intelligence information. But in some cases they have stayed for days, conducting mass roundups of hundreds of Palestinian men and imposing round-the-clock curfews.\nOn Sunday, Arafat named a new, smaller Cabinet that includes a new minister to oversee the security forces.\nAlso, the Palestinians will hold municipal elections in the fall, followed by presidential and parliamentary elections in January.\nArafat's slimmed down Cabinet has been reduced from 31 to 21 ministers. In the most important change, Arafat named Abdel Razak Yehiyeh, 73, as interior minister -- a position that puts him in overall charge of the security forces.\nArafat had kept the post for himself for the past eight years, but came under intense pressure from the United States and Israel to revamp the security forces to prevent attacks against Israel.\nIsraeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer reacted skeptically to the naming of Yehiyeh, saying it signified Arafat was not serious about reform.\n"This man represents the very old generation. So once again we have a commitment to the past and not to the future," Ben-Eliezer said.\nYehiyeh, a former guerrilla commander, has not held any high-profile positions recently, and his selection bypasses more prominent figures.\nDogged by accusations of widespread corruption in his government, Arafat named a new finance minister, Salem Fayad. He has worked in Jerusalem for the International Monetary Fund in recent years, and has called for greater financial accountability in the Palestinian government.\nMany Palestinians cite new elections as the most important reform. Since the Palestinian Authority was formed in 1994, elections have been held only once, in 1996.\nOn Monday, Israel released a member of the group Hezbollah it had been holding for 15 years, Israeli security sources and a witness said.\nHamad Abbas Barazawi, captured in April 1987, was released as a goodwill gesture to the Lebanese guerrilla group that seized three of its soldiers in October 2000, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.