Israeli troops raid Gaza City

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Israeli troops backed by dozens of tanks raided Gaza City on Tuesday to destroy several weapons workshops, killing nine Palestinians in gun battles in two neighborhoods of the Palestinians' largest city.\nThe incursion came amid growing international criticism of Israel's 6-day-old siege of Yasser Arafat's compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah.\nOn Tuesday, the U.N. Security Council demanded that Israel withdraw troops from Palestinian areas and the European Union told Arafat it was trying to get Israel to ease his isolation. Pope John Paul II also demanded an end to the blockade.\nIsrael assaulted and largely demolished Arafat's headquarters last week, in response to a Tel Aviv bus bombing that killed six people. On Tuesday, land phone lines to Arafat's compounds appeared to be out of order, meaning Arafat's only link to the outside world was a few mobile phones. Arafat and about 200 aides and security officials are confined to a few rooms in a wing of his office building.\nThe embattled Arafat said in a statement Tuesday that he welcomed the U.N. Security Council resolution, and urged the world to pressure Israel to implement it.\nAlso Tuesday, masked gunmen in a car without license plates fired gunshots at the house of Nabil Amr in Ramallah, Palestinian security officials said. No one was hurt. Amr, a member of Arafat's outgoing Cabinet, openly criticized Arafat and was reportedly involved in efforts to appoint a Palestinian prime minister to share power with him.\nDespite the international outcry, Israeli troops backed by about 60 armored vehicles raided Gaza City early Tuesday.\nSoldiers destroyed 13 workshops where the army said crude rockets were being made, and blew up the family house of a Hamas militiaman who killed five Israeli teenagers in a shooting rampage in a Jewish settlement in Gaza earlier this year.\nThe military did not target Hamas leaders in the raid, despite Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's veiled warning Monday that he would soon strike against the Islamic militant group which has claimed responsibility for the Tel Aviv bus attack.\nThe raid on Gaza City began around midnight, with soldiers converging on two neighborhoods. Israeli commentators said the operation apparently was a warmup for a larger offensive that would target Hamas leaders.\nAn Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the military is considering expelling the Hamas spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, and a senior official in the group, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, but that no final decision has been made. Rantisi warned Tuesday that "Gaza will be a grave to all Israeli soldiers."\nIn Tuesday's operation, nine Palestinians were killed--the highest one-day death toll in the strip since July when 15 people, all but two civilians, died in an Israeli airstrike that targeted the leader of the Hamas military wing, Salah Shehadeh.\nThree of those killed Tuesday were militiamen and six were civilians killed by stray rounds, doctors and relatives said. Among the dead civilians were two pairs of brothers who had been caught in the fighting. Twenty-four people were injured.\nThe military said Palestinian gunmen shot at the advancing troops, who returned fire, hitting several armed men. It said no soldiers were injured in the incursion and the troops withdrew at the end of the operation.\nIsrael has been sending tanks and troops into Gaza several times a week, targeting suspected weapons workshops and blowing up houses of suspected militants, but this was the first time such an incursion set off large-scale clashes.\nEarly Tuesday, the U.N. Security Council demanded that Israel cease operations around Arafat's compound and that troops withdraw from Palestinian cities "toward the return to positions held prior to Sept. 2000," when fighting erupted. The council also condemned terror attacks on Israel. \nThe Palestinians, who had failed several times in the past to secure such a resolution, said it was a step in the right direction. Arafat called on the international community to "obligate Israel to implement the withdrawal and end the siege," the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.\nThe Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Yehuda Lancry, said he was disappointed the United States did not veto the resolution. Lancy said the abstention should be seen in the light of Washington's desire to preserve good international relations ahead of possible military action against Iraq.\n"With the complex American situation regarding the Iraqi issue and its desire not to further strain relations with its European partners, they preferred to take a position in the middle," Lancry said.\nThe U.S. representative to the United Nations had explained the abstention by saying the resolution was not explicit enough in its condemnation of Palestinian attacks on Israelis. The Bush administration on Monday criticized the Israeli assault, saying in a statement it had "aggravated" efforts to improve security and to reform the Palestinian leadership.\nNear Arafat's compound support rallies continued. Early Tuesday, hundreds of Palestinians banging on pots and pans emerged from their homes in Ramallah, defying a military curfew as they marched to downtown Manara Square. "Show support for President Arafat," shouts came over loudspeakers and were greeted by louder banging. Israeli troops fired tear gas, rubber-coated steel pellets and live rounds to disperse the crowd. There were no reports of injuries.\nBoth sides were settling in for a long siege. Arafat on Monday rejected Israel's demand that he provide a list of names of all those holed up with him. Israel claims that about 50 terror suspects are inside, but has not released all the names of those it is looking for.\nIsrael has said troops will not withdraw until all wanted men have surrendered.\nIsraeli detractors of Sharon say the third siege in 10 months has revived the Palestinian leader's popularity and thwarted American and Israeli efforts to sideline him.\nThe assault on Arafat's office has made an already tense situation even more volatile. With Arafat ringed by troops and confined to a building Palestinians claim is in danger of collapse, Israel cannot guarantee the Palestinian leader's safety. Harm to Arafat, even unintentional, could ignite the region.\nArafat's isolation has triggered other street protests reminiscent of the scenes that marked the beginning of Palestinian-Israeli fighting two years ago.