JERUSALEM — Israel on Wednesday offered Yasser Arafat one more chance to rein in Islamic militants, calling a timeout in its military assault on the Palestinian Authority president's security forces just hours after another suicide bomber blew himself up in downtown Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Authority president responded by ordering that Sheik Ahmed Yassin, founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, be put under house arrest in Gaza City on Wednesday night. Thousands of Palestinians poured into the streets of Gaza before dawn today to protest the move. Some fired weapons into the air, and two Palestinian police officers and two protesters were injured, Palestinian sources said.
The clashes were evidence of the risk Arafat takes as he moves to protect his regime by fulfilling Israel's demands that he immediately crack down on militants.
Palestinian sources said protesters pelted police in Gaza with rocks and set two police cars ablaze after mosque loudspeakers exhorted people to support the ailing, 65-year-old sheik, who is a paraplegic. The Hamas movement he founded has carried out a series of deadly bombings inside Israel and advocates the destruction of the Jewish state.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon granted a 12-hour reprieve for the Palestinians, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said, after Arafat called Peres to complain that Israeli airstrikes on his security offices were making it impossible to carry out arrests.
"I told [Arafat]: In the next 12 hours, you can determine the way in which the Palestinian Authority will be regarded," Peres said Wednesday night on Israel Radio. "You have a list of 36 people who . . . stand behind the terror, and I very much recommend that you put them in jail."
Palestinians Denounce Israeli Air Attacks
Israel's decision to suspend military operations against the Palestinian Authority came one day after the government declared it a "terror-supporting entity" and unleashed aerial attacks on targets in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinians have denounced the Israeli attacks, launched after more than two dozen Israelis were killed in suicide bombings over the weekend, as a declaration of war on the Palestinian Authority and its leader.
Sharon's decision came as pressure mounted on Peres to quit the government rather than participate in what the prime minister has promised will be an escalating military campaign against Arafat.
