By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, January 5, 2007; A11
JERUSALEM, Jan. 4 -- Israeli troops pushed into Ramallah on Thursday in a rare daylight arrest operation, killing four Palestinians and wounding more than 20 others during heavy fighting in the city's streets. In the Gaza Strip, factional violence between the Hamas and Fatah movements left at least six people dead.
The Ramallah raid, the largest in the West Bank city in nearly two years, occurred as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met at a Sinai resort to discuss ways to reduce the factional tensions and revive the dormant Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
In a written statement after the operation, which took place blocks from his official compound, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said it showed that "Israeli calls for peace and security are fake."
"The continued aggression will only lead to the destruction of all efforts aimed at realizing peace," Abbas said, calling on foreign governments to pressure Israel to stop such operations.
In recent weeks, Olmert has pledged to strengthen the political standing of Abbas, a relative moderate and a leader of Fatah, as he confronts the radical Islamic movement Hamas, which has day-to-day control of the Palestinian government.
Hamas has rejected Abbas's calls to recognize Israel and renounce violence in return for a resumption of foreign aid, which was cut off following its election victory almost a year ago. Abbas's announcement last month that he intends to call early general elections to resolve the crisis has brought a fresh surge of partisan fighting.
In meeting with Abbas less than two weeks ago, Olmert promised to release $100 million in frozen tax revenue that Israel collects on the Palestinians' behalf and to lift a number of military checkpoints in the West Bank. The gestures were meant to be a vote of confidence in Abbas, but Israeli and Palestinian officials say neither pledge has been fulfilled.
The Ramallah operation occurred in a busy commercial district festooned with Christmas lights and left behind damaged cars and streets strewn with stones and debris. Such operations are commonly carried out at night, but Israeli forces moved into a downtown building in the late afternoon.
Soldiers found the man they intended to arrest armed with a handgun, military officials said, and fired on him as he fled. Israeli officials declined to identify the man because he was still at large, having escaped into streets that filled quickly with demonstrators.
But Palestinian witnesses identified the target as Rabiah Hamad, a leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah's armed wing. He was later treated for wounds in a Ramallah hospital.
Israeli military officials said the forces came under heavy fire during the operation. The troops arrested four gunmen, who Palestinian witnesses said also belonged to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
Palestinian witnesses and hospital officials said at least three of the men killed were civilians. The status of the fourth remained unclear.
"I am sorry if innocent people were hurt today in Ramallah," Olmert said at a news conference with Mubarak, who moments earlier had expressed his "dissatisfaction" with the raid. Olmert added: "One should remember that Israel has to operate against terrorists who operate against innocent Israelis. The operation today was to arrest a wanted man who hurt Israelis."
A second day of partisan fighting in Gaza began when a car carrying members of the Executive Force, a Palestinian security service controlled by the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, came under fire in the city of Beit Lahiya. One Hamas member died in the ambush, and two others were badly wounded.
After nightfall, the Executive Force surrounded the Beit Lahiya home of a senior officer of the Preventive Security Service, a Fatah-controlled branch. The gunmen said the house had been used in the earlier ambush.
Shots rang out as the Executive Force took up positions, and protesters arrived to prevent an attack on the house.
Soon after, the Executive Force opened fire on the house with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. Fatah officials said the officer, Col. Mohammed Ghrayeb, was killed in the shooting.
The Associated Press reported later that, in addition to Ghrayeb, four of his guards and a Hamas gunman were killed in the confrontation and about three dozen people, including eight children, were wounded.
Special correspondents Islam Abdel Kareem in Gaza and Sufian Taha in the West Bank contributed to this report.
