Headed For Tel Aviv Skyscraper?

An Israeli-Arab man who tried to storm the cockpit of an Israeli jetliner told interrogators he wanted to crash the plane into a Tel Aviv building in a Sept. 11-like attack, Turkey's private NTV television reported Monday.

Security guards aboard the airliner on Sunday overpowered the man, who was apparently armed with a pocket knife and threatened a stewardess. None of the 170 passengers on board the Boeing 757 were harmed and the plane landed safely.

On the one hand, reports CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger, the incident shows that El Al's renowned security system is effective. On the other, El Al will have to figure out how a passenger slipped through tight security carrying a knife.

Israeli police searched the man's home and have been questioning his relatives.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces Monday carried out a major raid in the heart of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli helicopters and tanks pounded the Palestinian police headquarters in Gaza City. Then Israeli troops moved in. The army says the compound was used to manufacture weapons. Soldiers found a big arms cache, including mortars shells, grenades, and anti-tank missiles. By the time the Israelis left a few hours later, much of the compound was in ruins. The army said the weapons found at the site are proof that the Palestinian Authority is directly involved in terrorism.

The hijacking suspect, identified by the Turkish semi-official Anatolia news agency as 23-year-old Israeli Arab, Tawfiq Fukra, was being questioned by anti-terrorism squads in Istanbul.

NTV television said the man told interrogators he wanted to force the plane to return to Tel Aviv and that he intended to crash it into a building there. The plane was on a Tel Aviv to Istanbul flight.

The report could not be verified independently.

Anatolia quoted Fukra as telling interrogators he had "carried out the action to protest" against Israel.

In northern Israel, police searched the home of Fukra's father, confiscated a computer and questioned several relatives who were all later released, Israel's Army Radio said.

El Al general manager Amos Shapira said the passenger "tried to reach the cockpit with what we assume now is a small pocket knife," but was overpowered by security guards.

Army Radio quoted Fukra's father, Salah, as saying his son shouldn't be called a hijacker just because he fought with a stewardess. He said his son was going to Turkey for vacation.

Okay Cakirlar, an official at Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport, said El Al Flight 581 sent out a hijacking signal as it approached Istanbul.

The suspect was later seen being taken out of the airport in handcuffs by undercover police. The Israeli embassy said Israel had not yet made any request for his extradition.

In the West Bank, soldiers imposed a curfew Monday in a Ramallah neighborhood and searched for a wanted Palestinian, witnesses said, while Israeli officials reportedly mulled a proposal to link Jewish enclaves in Hebron following an ambush Friday that killed 12 soldiers and security guards.

Despite all the violence and a sudden, bitter Israeli election campaign, negotiations continued over a U.S.-European plan to end the Mideast conflict, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press.

In Gaza City, Israeli helicopters fired missiles at the headquarters of Preventive Security, the main official Palestinian force, and tanks and soldiers moved in. Two Palestinian security officers and a TV cameraman working for Reuters news agency were slightly injured, doctors said. No other casualties were reported.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said the raid showed the "tight connection between the security forces of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian terror groups."

Palestinians fired on the troops and shot missiles against tanks but no soldiers were injured, the army said.

Nehama Snelzo, an Israeli tourist, said the alleged would-be hijacker looked scared when he was overpowered.

"He seemed to be very scared, he started saying 'I'm going to Istanbul to see a friend, I'm not a threat,'" Snelzo said.

Another passenger, Viv Gulmez, said the man was sitting just in front of her and he looked suspicious.

"He was going to toilet very often, and once he made a telephone call from the plane," Gulmez told private CNN-Turk television.

Snelzo said after the incident, the flight attendants made an announcement, telling "us not to get scared, to sit down, not to get up and be calm."

The man first threatened a flight attendant with a knife and then kicked the door of the cockpit but the door was locked, some passengers said. Security guards posing as passengers subdued him, they said.

El Al's security includes armed guards at check-in, on-board marshals and extensive searches of luggage. Passengers are told to arrive three hours ahead of flights to allow enough time for the security checks.

The first and last successful hijacking of an El Al plane was in July 1968, when a flight from Rome was seized by members of the extremist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and forced to land in Algiers. Passengers and crew were held hostage there, with the last of them not released until five months later.

A September 1970 hijacking attempt failed when sky marshals shot and killed one hijacker and captured his accomplice.

The Israeli forces pulled out of Arafat's security compound after more than three hours, leaving several of the 11 buildings in the compound in ruins. At the main administration building, targeted for the first time in two years of fighting, furniture was smashed and computers destroyed, their parts littering the floor as firefighters fought a blaze nearby.

Mustafa Mughrabi, 45, who lives near the Preventive Security base, said by telephone that he was hiding under a bed with his children after gunfire hit his house from three directions. Outside, he said he heard "the sound of explosions mixed with screams of children."

Palestinian official Tayeb Abdel Rahim, who said his house was hit by bullets, warned that "security and stability for Israeli people cannot be achieved at the expense of the Palestinian people."

So far Gaza has been spared the large-scale military operations in which Israel has taken control of most West Bank Palestinian population centers, retaliation for bloody terror attacks. However, Israeli leaders have said that militant groups operate unfettered in Gaza, and the Israeli military would confront them at some point.