JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared his nation at war Monday as warplanes and helicopters blasted Palestinian targets in the West Bank and near Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's headquarters in Gaza City.
The retaliatory strike, which Sharon suggested was just the beginning, followed a bloody weekend of attacks on Israeli civilians that killed 26 people - many of them teenagers and young children - and wounded about 230.
"This will not be an easy war," Sharon said, echoing President Bush's declaration of war against international terrorism after the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington. "This war will not be a short war. But we shall win."
Sharon laid the blame for the weekend's suicide assaults on Arafat, whom he described as "responsible for all that has happened," and in Washington U.S. officials pointedly said it was up to Arafat to stop the terrorist attacks.
Monday's Israeli targets included Arafat's helipad in Gaza and his office and police headquarters in Jenin, a center of Palestinian militancy in the West Bank that some call the "city of suicide bombers." About 10 Palestinians were wounded.
"He who is going to kill us, his blood will be shed by us," Sharon said.
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The first of the Israeli strikes occurred in Gaza as Palestinians were sitting down to their end of the day Ramadan meals, which may have accounted for - intentionally or not - the relatively low number of casualties.
Apache helicopter gunships backed by Israeli navy patrol boats off shore rained missiles on Arafat's Mediterranean seafront compound. Two of Arafat's helicopters were destroyed to limit his freedom of movement, an army spokesperson said.
Arafat's nearby house was not targeted, and Arafat was known to be safely ensconced in Ramallah, the West Bank seat of his Palestinian Authority.
Some U.S. officials viewed the somewhat limited Israeli attack as final notice to the Palestinian leader that he must curtail the actions of radical Palestinian groups and stop the assaults on Israeli civilians.
"It was a pretty dramatic warning to Arafat, but still a warning," said a senior administration official who asked not to be identified.
Fearful that all-out war between Israel and militant Muslim groups would undercut support for America's own war on terrorism, undermine pro-Western Arab regimes and strengthen zealots, U.S. officials were trying to persuade Israel to give Arafat one last chance to rein in terrorists - and just as desperately trying to persuade Arafat to seize that chance.
"Open warfare between Israel and the Palestinians would be good for Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and the worst elements in Iran, among others," said one senior administration official. "It would be bad for Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the moderates in Iran."
The Israel attacks also hit an underground fuel depot, sending plumes of thick black smoke over the largest city in the crowded coastal strip of Gaza.
Within an hour, an Israeli warplane attacked a newly built but empty Palestinian police headquarters in Jenin, as well as an office Arafat maintains in that northern West Bank city, according to Israeli officials and Jenin Gov. Zuhair Manasreh.
No injuries were immediately reported in Jenin, though Manasreh said he was still assessing the situation Monday night.
Security forces loyal to Arafat had abandoned the buildings in anticipation of retaliation for the weekend suicide attacks in Jerusalem and Haifa, which killed 24 Israelis and a Filipina guest worker. Another Israeli was killed in the Gaza strip.
"God will avenge their deaths," said Sharon, opening his speech with his condolences to families of the dead and wounded.
Addressing a nation steeled to violence but jolted by recent events, Sharon pledged that Israel would "chase after those responsible for terror, those who carry it out, and those who assist, and they will pay the price."
He called Arafat "the main impediment to peace and stability in the Middle East.
"Arafat will not succeed in deceiving the government I head." Sharon said. "Arafat has chosen the path of terror . . . to try to make diplomatic gains through murder."
Those statements were rejected by Palestinian leaders.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat reacted angrily to both Sharon's address and the military action, which he called "a declaration of war. He is saying war, war, war now - peace later."
By attacking Palestinian police headquarters, he added, "They're tying Arafat's hands, blindfolding him and throwing him into the sea and asking him to be a good swimmer. This means that more Palestinians will be killed and more Israelis will be killed."
Hanan Ashrawi, a key Palestinian intellectual and spokesperson for the Arab League, called Monday's attacks "a truly dangerous escalation . . . that is leading and feeding this cycle of violence. It seems that Sharon does not want Arafat to succeed."
Monday's retaliation came at a time when Arafat has vowed to crack down on Muslim extremists.
Amid scuffles and occasional stone-throwing with Palestinians loyal to the militant Islamic Jihad and Hamas movements, forces of his Palestinian Authority arrested about 100 suspected militants over the weekend, including five on a list of 15 men from Jenin, which was all but surrounded Monday by Israeli troops.
In Gaza, reports said Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas spiritual leader, was under house arrest.
But Israeli leaders say they don't believe that Arafat's current arrest campaign is enough to stop further attacks on civilians.
Sharon did not detail what additional steps Israel might take, but he cast Israel's "war on terror" as an existential struggle similar to the U.S. campaign against bin Laden's al-Qaida network.
He said Arafat was responsible because it was within the Palestinian Authority's self-rule territory that radical Muslims trained, plotted and deployed into Israel on suicide missions.
"Just as the United States acts in its battle against world terror, under the brave leadership of President Bush, just as it acts with all its strength, so shall we do," Sharon said, "with all the means at our disposal."
Knight Ridder Tribune
