200 die in Israel during holiday

The Washington Post

JERUSALEM - Israeli attack helicopters and antitank missiles pounded Palestinian rioters in a vain attempt to extinguish a three-day explosion of violence that spread yesterday from the West Bank and Gaza Strip to towns and cities inside Israel.

Israeli tanks rumbled to the outskirts of the West Bank city of Nablus, where Israeli troops were besieged by Palestinian gunmen inside Joseph's Tomb, traditional burial place of the biblical patriarch. Elsewhere, thousands of Palestinians continued to bombard Israeli positions with rocks and Molotov cocktails and trade automatic weapons fire with Israeli forces.

At least 12 Palestinians died yesterday, bringing to more than 30 the number killed since Friday, when clashes erupted after right-wing Israeli politician Ariel Sharon visited a site sacred to Muslims and Jews in East Jerusalem on Thursday.

One Israeli soldier bled to death in Nablus while troops tried to clear an evacuation route through mobs of Palestinian rioters and gunmen. More than 200 people have been wounded in the long, bloody holiday weekend marking Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.

The Middle East peace process has survived successive waves of violence, terror and unrest since it began in 1993, but there was growing concern here that the current scale of fighting and casualties could derail negotiations at a critical juncture.

"We're starting to ask if the Palestinians want peace," said Maj. Gen. Ytzak Eitan, commander of Israeli forces in the West Bank.

A top Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said he was not certain whether conclusive peace talks could resume while the fighting raged. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has not commented publicly on the fighting.