JERUSALEM (KRT) — Amid a mounting death toll and growing international pressure, some Israeli officials reluctantly conceded Sunday that they will have to curtail their offensive in the West Bank and possibly drop plans to invade the Gaza Strip.
But urban combat still raged in many places, no signs of withdrawal appeared and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon defended a military campaign that has aroused criticism from many corners of the world, including the White House.
“We have no interest in dragging it out, but we have to do the job,” Sharon told Israel Radio.
At least 14 Palestinians were killed Sunday in Nablus alone. The death toll so far: at least 200 Palestinians and 12 Israeli soldiers.
Late Sunday, Israelis along the northern border retreated to bomb shelters after Hezbollah guerrillas based in Lebanon opened fire on several villages and rockets pounded Israeli military sites on the Golan Heights.
Six Israeli soldiers were wounded during exchanges of fire with the guerrillas, a military spokesman said Sunday night. A second front clearly was active in the war now.
Sharon blamed Iran and Syria, and said Israel has issued warnings through diplomatic channels. “We made clear that this … could perhaps lead to a very big outbreak,” he said.
Earlier, as he opened his weekly Cabinet meeting, Sharon offered no apologies for the invasion of the West Bank.
Israeli military officials released a grim roster of the casualties: In addition to the dead, more than 1,500 Palestinians and 143 Israelis have been wounded.
Israeli officials also said that 1,413 Palestinians have been detained during the 10-day campaign, including 361 “wanted suspects.”
Maj. Gen. Dan Harel, head of military operations, claimed that few Palestinian civilians perished and that nearly every Palestinian victim “died with a rifle in his hand or a suicide-bomb vest around his waist.”
Palestinian leaders and many citizens disagreed, saying countless civilians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, which began after a series of suicide bombings and other attacks killed more than 125 people in March alone.
Heavy fighting continued Sunday in a refugee camp near Jenin and in Nablus, both in the northern section of the West Bank, Israeli officials reported. Meanwhile, with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell expected in Israel by week’s end, some Israeli officials paid at least lip service to the Bush administration’s demand that they begin the military withdrawal from the West Bank as soon as possible.
Israeli Cabinet Minister Matan Vilnai told Israel Radio that Israel “apparently will have to stop” the offensive by the time Powell arrives.
“It could be that we won’t be able to enter new places that we planned on entering at this phase, for example, cities of the Gaza Strip,” Vilnai said. Sunday’s Cabinet meeting ended with no outward sign that Sharon or his government would capitulate to world opinion.
“Israel, like any country in the world, has the right to defend itself against the cruel terror operated against it from a center of terror found only a number of kilometers from its population centers,” the Cabinet said in an official communiqué.
One day after President Bush said he expected Israel to “withdraw without delay” from the West Bank, his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, seemed to soften the administration’s position.
“Our message to the Israelis is that we understand that a military mobilization of this kind and an operation of this size cannot be undone in moments,” she said on ABC’s This Week. “But the important point is to begin now, without delay, not tomorrow, not (when) Secretary Powell gets to the region, but now.”