Tuesday April 17 12:20 PM ET
Israel General Says Could Stay Months in Gaza

By Wafa Amr and Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Using the heaviest firepower in months, Israel pushed back the borders of Palestinian-ruled Gaza by up to 1,000 yards and a top general said Tuesday that his troops could stay in their new positions for months.

The air, land and sea assaults Monday night led to the closure of the Egyptian border at the southern end of Gaza and left the area in disarray with homes destroyed, one dead and 30 wounded.

In the latest sign of right-wing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's ``get tough'' policy, the 27-mile long Gaza Strip was effectively carved into three separate zones. Its main coastal road was cut by Israeli checkpoints.

Protests by thousands of people broke out in other Palestinian-run areas like Hebron and elsewhere in the West Bank.

Israel closed for an indefinite period the Egyptian-Israeli border crossing in the Rafah area.

An Egyptian border official said 25 vehicles carrying aid and goods to Palestinians were stranded on the Egyptian side.

Arabs reacted with fury to Israel's show of military might in Lebanon, where its warplanes knocked out a Syrian radar station Monday, and in the Gaza Strip.

But they took little action to back their angry words.

Syria urged Arab governments to cut all contacts with Israel in response to the air raid that killed three Syrian soldiers.

But neither Egypt nor Jordan, the only two Arab countries to have signed peace treaties with Israel, gave any indication that they planned to downgrade ties with the Jewish state further -- both recalled their ambassadors from Israel last year.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat consulted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh just hours after Israeli troops retook parts of the Gaza Strip overnight in a hail of fire.

The army said Sharon ordered the strikes late Monday after five mortar bombs fired from the Strip hit the southern Israeli town of Sderot three miles away. The military wing of the Muslim militant group Hamas said it had fired them.

The mortar rounds landed deeper in Israel than any since the start of a Palestinian uprising for independence last September, falling just down the road from Sharon's Negev Desert ranch.

Gaza residents used donkeys and made long detours to get to destinations in the Strip, where 1.2 million Palestinians live in an area that at some points is just 2.5 miles wide.

Gaza City's main police headquarters and two elite Force 17 security unit posts were among at least seven main targets hit in an attack that lasted for hours.

``We will remain in these places for as long as it takes -- days, weeks, months,'' Brig. Gen. Yair Naveh, commander of the army's Gaza brigade, told reporters on the Israel-Gaza border.

Tayeb Abdel Rahim, Arafat's top aide, told Reuters he was incensed by the comments.

``This is a flagrant violation of the agreements and will lead to increased tensions. The Israelis must withdraw immediately from these occupied areas.''

Gaza residents grimly recounted their night of violence, the worst in the seven months since the present uprising started over the breakdown of peace talks.

At least 379 Palestinians, 13 Israeli Arabs and 71 other Israelis have died since the uprising began in September.

``Night Of Horror''

``We lived a night of fire, war and horror,'' a 30-year-old resident of the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun said.

``There was fire in the sky. Men, women and children were running everywhere throughout the night as bullets flew over their heads,'' he added.

Apart from the wounded, hospitals reported that relatives had brought dozens of people in for help from shock after they endured six hours of night bombardment.

The Gaza attacks, involving tanks, helicopter gunships, missiles, ships and bulldozers, began less than 24 hours after the bombing of the Syrian radar station.

In the Gaza Strip, hundreds of children, men, women, students and workers turned to beach travel in donkey carts to take them to points where they could pick up taxis and buses.

Israel had tanks on main roads, all of which were closed.

An Israeli bulldozer dug a trench in the coastal road and piled it with stones to bar traffic.

``That's too much, that's too much,'' said a breathless elderly woman climbing up a sandy hill on her way to Gaza City.

Witnesses said the army had thrust into Palestinian-ruled Beit Hanoun near the Erez crossing to Israel and at several other points. Blockades kept Palestinians from entering an area of homes and orchards.

Israel transferred most of the Gaza Strip to Palestinian rule in 1994 at the start of seven years of peacemaking, which deadlocked before the latest spate of violence began.

-----