Israeli Army Retakes Hebron

Israeli soldiers retook this divided city Saturday, imposed a curfew and herded dozens of blindfolded Palestinians into buses - a first response to a Palestinian ambush that killed 12 members of the security forces in a dead-end alley.

The sophisticated ambush, using Jewish worshippers as a lure to kill the soldiers and security guards, jeopardized U.S. intentions to cool the Mideast conflict and focus attention on Iraq, and scuttled a plan to turn Hebron into a model of calm after an Israeli army pullback.

Israel's retaliation was expected to focus on Hebron itself, with troops staying for an extended period to crush militias. An adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said there was no plan to expel Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat - as has been demanded by several Cabinet members, including Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

CBS News correspondent Robert Berger reports that Israel's defense minister has ordered a series of tough measures in the West Bank in response to the Hebron attack. Security sources told Berger the army will sieze areas used as bases for Palestinian terror, and arrest militants and their leaders. The homes of Palestinians involved in terrorism will be demolished, Berger says.

Early Sunday, Israeli helicopters fired three missiles at a target near the Gaza city of Khan Younis, Palestinian security officials said. They said the missiles hit a metal workshop, setting a fire, but no one was hurt.

The Israeli military had no comment. In the past the Israelis have targeted metal workshops, charging that Palestinians make weapons there.

Friday night's ambush, claimed by the Islamic Jihad group, brought tensions in Hebron - home to 130,000 Palestinians and 450 Jewish settlers - to a boiling point. About 1,000 settlers attended a rally after the end of the Sabbath, some chanting "revenge" and "death to the Arabs." Army commanders urged settler leaders to prevent vigilante action.

In the Gaza Strip, hundreds of Islamic Jihad supporters rallied in celebration. Abdullah Shami, a leader of the group, said "there is no room to give up or to surrender to this criminal Nazi enemy who seeks to exterminate Palestinians in collusion with America."

In other violence Saturday, two Palestinians were killed by army fire, including a young woman shot dead while looking out of her window and a 17-year-old Islamic Jihad gunman.

The Hebron attack began shortly after 7:30 p.m. local time on Friday, after Jewish worshippers had finished Sabbath prayers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in downtown Hebron and were walking back to the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba, about half a mile away.

Just moments after soldiers heard the "all clear" on their radios, a sign that the worshippers had been escorted safely, shots burst from an olive grove and nearby Palestinian homes.

An army jeep chasing the gunmen raced into a dead-end alley and came under massive fire from all directions, said Col. Noam Tibon, an army commander. All four soldiers in the jeep were killed.

Reinforcements also came under fire and were killed, including the Hebron brigade commander, Col. Dror Weinberg, the highest-ranking Israeli officer shot dead in more than two years of Mideast violence. None of the worshippers was injured.

Arik Mariner, a member of the security forces, said it was difficult to get the wounded out during more than two hours of fierce fighting.

"Maybe so many people shouldn't have gone into the alley," Mariner told Israel TV. "The wounded were screaming `save us' and I saw things ... soldiers without hands, without legs, things that tear the heart."

The dead included four Israeli soldiers, five border policemen and three civilian security guards from Kiryat Arba - one of the highest death tolls among security forces in a single encounter since the outbreak of fighting in Sept. 2000.

"On a tactical level, we paid a very high price. There were some mistakes," Tibon said.

Fourteen soldiers and border policemen were wounded, including several who were in serious condition. Three gunmen were killed.

The U.S. State Department condemned the attack as a "heinous crime," adding that while Israel has the right to take anti-terrorism measures, it must do everything it can to prevent civilian casualties.

Netanyahu said the international community must "support Israel's right and obligation to take vigorous action against terror and the regimes that back it."

Netanyahu said he continued to support the expulsion of Arafat. However, Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Sharon, said that a previous Cabinet decision not to expel the Palestinian leader remained in effect.

The United States opposes the expulsion of Arafat at a time when it tries to maintain Arab support for a possible strike against Iraq.

Jewish settlers in Hebron demanded that troops remain in Hebron indefinitely and that the government cancel a 1997 interim peace deal under which Israel withdrew from most of the city, retaining control only in the downtown area where settlers live in a heavily guarded enclaves.

"What is needed is a response that will shock the enemy," said a statement by settler leaders.

In a first response, Israeli troops razed three homes and cut down the olive grove from which shots were fired. They also rounded up 43 Palestinians, herding them blindfolded into army buses. Several wanted men were among the detainees, the military said.

Armored personnel carriers rolled into the Palestinian sector of Hebron, and troops were deployed throughout the city. Military correspondents said troops were preparing for an extended stay - similar to an ongoing operation in the West Bank city of Nablus.

Hebron's Palestinian residents were placed under tight curfew.

Israeli soldiers had withdrawn from the Palestinian sector three weeks earlier, as part of what was to have been a partial pullback of forces from West Bank areas where calm was restored.

The Palestinian Authority withheld condemnation. Most Palestinians consider attacks on Jewish settlers and soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip a legitimate act of resistance against Israeli occupation.

Palestinian opinion is divided over attacks on civilians in Israel itself, with Arafat's Fatah movement, backed by Egypt, trying to persuade the militant Hamas group to halt suicide bombings at least until Israel's Jan. 28 election.

The demand was delivered in talks in Cairo this week. Islamic Jihad, which is smaller than Hamas and is backed by Iran, is not participating in the talks.

Asked about the attack, Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh would only say: "The only solution to ending the cycle of violence is to come back to the negotiating table without conditions."

In other developments Saturday, 17-year-old gunman Ibrahim Saade was killed in a shootout with Israeli troops in the Jenin refugee camp. Saade, whose twin brother was killed in similar circumstances three months ago, is the son of the Islamic Jihad leader in Jenin, Sheik Bassam Saade, who is wanted by Israel.

In Nablus, 20-year-old Samar Sharab was hit by Israeli army fire while looking out the window of her home, said her father, Mahmoud Sharab. The Israeli military said troops had fired at a wall to deter residents from breaking a curfew, and that the woman was killed by the ricochet of a wall fragment. The army said it was sorry about the death.

An elderly Palestinian shepherd was found near his tent in the West Bank with three bullets in the neck.

The army said troops first shouted at the man, then fired warning shots in the air to stop him as he neared the border with Israel before shooting him in the legs.

Hebron, to the south of Jerusalem, has long been a volatile place filled with religious and political tensions. Muslims here are among the most devout and the Jewish settlers among the most radical.

Hebron has had a history of deadly Jewish-Arab violence.