Israel continues assault on West Bank refugee camps

Israeli army armored personnel carriers enter the Balata refugee camp near the West Bank town of Nablus on Thursday.

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- In what it is calling an attempt to root out terrorists in the West Bank, Israel on Friday continued its largest assault on Palestinian refugee camps since the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict began.

Israeli infantry, armor and engineering units rolled into a West Bank Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin early Friday and were engaged in exchanges of gunfire with Palestinians, Israel Defense Forces said.

"The goal of this activity aims to stop terrorists and dismantle the terrorist infrastructure within the camp," an IDF statement said.

Palestinian security sources said one Palestinian was killed in Jenin and 23 others were wounded in Friday's fighting.

Within hours of the start of the Israeli incursion, intense Palestinian gunfire was targeted on the Jewish neighborhood of Gilo on the outskirts of Jerusalem, IDF said. Four residents were wounded and schools remained closed Friday in the wake of the attacks, IDF said.

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Palestinians consider Gilo occupied land that belongs to the nearby Arab town of Beit Jala.

As the fighting continued, the United States and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged both sides to use restraint.

IDF forces began their assault on the Jenin camp Thursday but did not enter it until Friday. Israeli forces also launched a military operation against a refugee camp in Balata near Nablus and by late Thursday claimed to have taken over the camp. Military sources said house-to-house searches were being conducted.

The IDF said the camps "are central bases for terrorist factors responsible for the murder of scores of Israeli civilians."

Helicopters and tanks were involved in the attacks, but much of the fighting is being done on foot in the camps, which are crisscrossed by narrow alleys.

The operations Thursday resulted in the deaths of 13 Palestinians and one Israeli, according to the Israeli army and Palestinian security sources.

In Aida on Thursday, two Israeli helicopter gunships fired at the power plant for a refugee camp at Beit Jala, knocking out power and injuring three people, according to Palestinian security sources. The IDF said the strike was made after members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades fired mortar rounds into the Gilo area from Beit Jala.

The group is the military wing of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. It has launched a series of bombings and terror attacks in recent months.

The IDF said there is continuous fighting between the two sides in the refugee camps, including heavy exchanges of fire and the detonation of a number of roadside bombs against the Israeli forces.

The Israeli incursions follow a suicide attack Wednesday by a Palestinian woman, who was identified by Israeli media as a resident of the Balata camp. The woman emerged from her vehicle with explosives strapped to her body and blew herself up during a routine stop at a West Bank checkpoint, according to Israeli military sources.

Two other Palestinians in the woman's vehicle were killed and at least three Israeli police received non- life-threatening wounds, the military sources said.

An Israeli soldier was killed and two others wounded during the operation in Balata, the IDF said.

Palestinian security sources said five Palestinian policemen, a civilian and a gunman were killed in fighting Thursday at the Jenin refugee camp and three Palestinians were killed in Balata refugee camp in the clash with Israeli soldiers. The Palestine Red Crescent said 60 others were wounded in the Balata violence, three critically.

The violence took place as a meeting was held Thursday between Israeli and Palestinian security officials, the IDF said.

Saudi peace plan discussed

The latest violence is playing out against the background of a Saudi Arabian peace initiative on the Middle East. Under that proposal, the Arab world would make peace with Israel in an exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from territories it occupied during the 1967 Six-Day War.

CIA Director George Tenet and a senior State Department official talked Thursday with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah about the peace initiative, U.S. officials said. (Full story)

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the Saudi proposal is both important and "consistent with the vision Secretary (Colin) Powell laid out last fall," but he added that the plan's issues must be negotiated.

Boucher also said the United States has been in contact with Israel regarding the refugee camp incursions and has urged "utmost restraint to avoid harm to civilians."

"We've continued to call on Chairman Arafat and the Palestinian Authority to undertake actions to confront violence," he said. "And we understand that Israel needs to take steps to provide for its own security, but at the same time they need to avoid harm to civilians."

Reacting to the clashes, U.N. chief Annan on Thursday called on the IDF to immediately withdraw from the refugee camps and urged both sides to halt what he called "attacks against civilians."

"I call on the IDF to withdraw from these camps immediately, and I implore both sides to refrain from further actions which may endanger yet more civilian lives," Annan said.

Wednesday's suicide bombing attack at the Israeli checkpoint appeared to be the second involving a Palestinian woman. In late January, Israeli authorities said, a Palestinian woman set off a bomb on a crowded street in West Jerusalem, killing herself and an 81-year-old Israeli man.

And it was the latest in a series of attacks at Israeli checkpoints. Six soldiers were killed in one such attack near Ramallah last week. The Israeli military has responded with punishing attacks on the Palestinian infrastructure, and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced last Thursday that Israel will create buffer zones intended to provide security for Israelis.