U.N. Demands End To Arafat Siege

The U.S. stood alone in abstaining early today, as the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution demanding Israel end the siege of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's headquarters.

As that vote was debated and taken, Israeli troops backed by dozens of tanks raided Gaza City in the deepest incursion yet into the Palestinians' largest metropolis, killing nine Palestinians in gun battles in crowded neighborhoods.

Gaza is the main power base of Hamas, which has carried out a wave of suicide bombings in the two-year-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, including the attack last week which prompted the siege of Arafat's Ramallah headquarters.

Soldiers 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 teen-agers in a shooting rampage in a Jewish settlement in Gaza earlier this year.

The workshop owners denied the allegations that their businesses were being used to make weapons.

The raid in Gaza came several hours after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's veiled warning Monday that he would soon strike against the Islamic militant group which has claimed responsibility for dozens of suicide attacks in Israel, including a Tel Aviv bus bombing last week that killed six people.

The siege of Arafat's offices has left the Palestinian leader confined to a few rooms and has prompted growing international criticism.

Early today, the U.N. Security Council - with a lone U.S. abstention - 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.

The Palestinians, who had failed several times in the past to secure such a resolution, said it was a step in the right direction. "What is required now is the implementation of this decision," said Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an Arafat adviser.

The Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Yehuda Lancry, said he was disappointed the United States did not veto the resolution. The United States has previously vetoed similar resolutions, but diplomats said it decided not to this time to avoid alienating Arab opinion in its campaign for U.N. support against Iraq.

Calling the resolution flawed, James Cunningham, the U.S. representative, said: "It failed to explicitly condemn the terrorist groups and those who provide them with political cover, support and safe haven in perpetuating conflict in the Middle East."

Near Arafat's compound, meanwhile, support rallies continued. Early today, 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.

The raid on Gaza City began around midnight, with about 60 armored vehicles converging on two neighborhoods. Israeli commentators said the operation - the deepest foray into the city of 600,000 in two years of fighting - apparently was a warmup for a larger offensive that would target Hamas leaders.

An 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 today that "Gaza will be a grave to all Israeli soldiers."

In today's raids in Gaza, nine Palestinians were killed - the highest one-day death toll in the strip since July when 15 people, nearly all civilians, died in an Israeli airstrike that targeted the leader of the Hamas military wing, Salah Shehadeh.

Three of those killed 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.

The 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.

On Monday, Sharon said Israel had been preparing an incursion in Gaza to crack down on Hamas and extend the army's efforts to dismantle weapons factories there.

"We of course haven't completed our work in the Gaza Strip," he said. "The day will come, as soon as we can get the necessary troops together, that we will of course have to do this to strike at Hamas and prevent its ability to act."

Israel 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.

In the West Bank city of Hebron, an Israeli man was killed and three of his children, ages 9, 12 and 18, were wounded in a Palestinian shooting attack Monday evening, as thousands of Israelis marched to a disputed holy site - the Tomb of the Patriarchs - to mark the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot.

At Arafat's compound, both 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 - about 200 people. Israel claims that about 50 terror suspects are inside, but has not released all the names of those it is looking for.

Israel has said troops will not withdraw until all wanted men have surrendered.

The U.S. administration on Monday criticized the Israeli assault, saying in a statement it had "aggravated" efforts to improve security and to reform the Palestinian leadership.

Israeli 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.

The 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.

Arafat's isolation has triggered other street protests - some orchestrated and others spontaneous - reminiscent of the scenes that marked the beginning of Palestinian-Israeli fighting two years ago.