''There will be attacks on settlers and soldiers in the occupied territories and maybe even on civilians in Israel.''

Mourners carry the bodies of two Palestinians March 4, 2002 during a funeral in the West Bank city of Nablus. The Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli troops at the Balata refugee camp two days ago. Israeli forces raided refugee camps, blew up a car carrying a Palestinian militant's family and opened fire on an ambulance, killing 17 people after vowing harsh reprisals for attacks on Israelis. (Abed Omar Qusini/Reuters)

Over the weekend, Khader's predictions proved chillingly accurate. Israeli soldiers, civilians and settlers seemingly paid a heavy price for the invasion of the camps. The toll from a suicide bombing in Jerusalem and attacks in the occupied territories was 21 dead and dozens wounded.

After having withdrawn over the weekend, the army on Monday immediately resumed its attacks on the refugee camps. On top of the more than 20 Palestinians who died during the operations in Jenin and Balata last week, at least nine more were killed during new attacks on Jenin camp and Rafah in Gaza.

Israel's fury was not only aimed at the camps: in a gruesome incident in Ramallah six civilians were killed by a tank grenade.

Prime Minister Sharon has sharply rejected the link between the first Israeli incursions into the refugee camps during this intifada and the subsequent flare up in the violence. He said Israel would apply ''continuous military pressure'' against more Palestinian refugee camps.

The operations against the camps started last week, after the army had come under increasing pressure to deal with the militants who allegedly used them as a haven. Earlier this year when troops reoccupied the whole city of Tulkarem, most of the wanted militants escaped to the nearby refugee camp, which was left alone.

Israeli commentators had speculated that the army's restraint was motivated by fears of a high number of casualties among its own soldiers if they had to fight their way in. The commander of the troops on the West Bank, Brigadier-General Gershon Yitzhak said that the purpose of the current operations in Balata and Jenin camps is to show the terrorists that they have nowhere to hide.

In Balata at least that seems not to have worked. Leaders of the Palestinian militants maintain that they evacuated most of the wanted people from the camp. "We knew two weeks ago that they were going to do this,'' said Khader, who is also a commander of Fatah's Tanzim militia and a target for the Israeli's. ''We had plenty of time to prepare our resistance.''

One of the first actions of the soldiers was to occupy Khader's house in Balata and detain his family. ''My three children, my wife, who is pregnant, and my sister are all held in one room, where they have no electricity or water,'' he said worriedly.

Khader got away and sought refuge at the house of friends in Nablus, where he constantly received visitors and phone calls. ''That was the American consulate,'' he says as he puts down his phone, clearly pleased with the attention, ''I also talked to the UN and the EU''.

The initial armed resistance against the Israeli incursion was mostly symbolic, according to Khader, ''to show that we cannot be pushed around, as a way of lifting the spirits of all the Palestinians but at one point we ordered our fighters to withdraw and they all got out.''

In the Jenin camp the Israeli's say they killed at least one senior leader of the Hamas movement. In and around Jenin most of the victims have been Palestinian policemen. Khader was scathing, however, about the role the Palestinian Authority played in Balata.

''They are afraid. They just send the Israeli's a fax saying they oppose the incursion. Each service symbolically sent ten men to the camp, just as a show, and they withdrew the moment it started." He admitted, though, to also being worried when he knew the incursion was coming: "the Israeli's are led by a crazy general, Sharon, who is responsible for Sabra and Shatilla".

Some Israeli's were also worried about the parallels with the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian refugees by Christian militia's in Beirut's Sabra and Shatilla camps in 1983, for which Sharon was held indirectly responsible. ''This is total madness'' was the first reaction of the leader of Israel's left wing opposition, Yossi Sarid. He directed a pointed warning at Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to be very careful in the camps, as ''someone who got burned at Sabra and Shatilla.''

The Palestinians say that most of their casualties in Balata are innocent civilians. ''We fought but most of us got away, with our weapons,'' said a wounded commander of the Tanzim-militia in the Rafidiyeh hospital in Nablus. ''We held them off until they started using helicopters.''

He was proud of Balata's role as a hothouse for anti-Israeli activists. ''We are all refugees and we resist the Israeli's more than anyone else. Now that they could not catch us they are just demolishing our homes and our possessions.'' He said that he would go back and fight, despite his wounds.

The Israeli's kept mostly out of sight during their incursion into Balata. Apart form the occasional tank and bulldozer the Israeli soldiers could hardly be seen. They mostly blew their way through the walls of adjacent houses in the densely built-up camp, thus avoiding getting trapped in the narrow alleys.

The search seems to have been systematic and every advance was covered by a burst of machinegun fire and occasional shelling. The Palestinian resistance largely melted away, though, on Thursday afternoon, when most of the militants that the Israeli's are looking for 'withdrew'. Balata's water, electricity and telephone lines were cut off for at least two days.

The Israeli method of advancing by blowing their way through the houses was not without danger for the residents. A group of children who made their way back into the camp, Friday afternoon, after having fled the camp earlier tearfully told about the events of the previous day. ''Our little sister is in the hospital' explained 15-year old Jamila. 'She was hit by falling stones when the Israeli's blew up the wall of our house.''

Copyright 2002 IPS - Inter Press Service

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