Sharon under fire for bungled Arafat siege

PRIME Minister Ariel Sharon came under wall-to-wall criticism at home yesterday for the bungled 10-day siege of Yasser Arafat's compound, which was aborted under intense US pressure.

Several Cabinet ministers said Israel underestimated Washington's opposition to the operation and its determination to keep the focus on Iraq ahead of a possible US strike against Saddam Hussein.

In new violence yesterday, Israeli troops enforcing a curfew in the West Bank town of Nablus and an adjacent refugee camp killed a 13-year-old Palestinian boy and wounded 10 youngsters, most of whom were on the way to or from school, doctors and witnesses said.

At Mr Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah, Israeli troops were out of sight at day after ending their siege though they still control the town, as well as most other population centers in the West Bank.

A small bulldozer brought in by the Palestinians cleared some of the rubble; in the initial assault last week, Israeli troops levelled all but one building. Workers swept up shattered glass, fixed water pipes and tried to salvage air conditioners while crowd gathered nearby to gawk. Vendors quickly arrived to sell ice cream, coffee and newspapers.

Mr Arafat complained yesterday that Israeli troops should pull back further and said Israel must now implement the remainder of last week's UN Security Council resolution a withdrawal from Palestinian cities.

Arafat adviser Nabil Abu Rdeneh said that Mr Arafat would resume consultations on appointing a new Cabinet to replace the ministers forced to resign earlier this month as part of an effort by members of Mr Arafat's Fatah movement to push Mr Arafat to share power.

The withdrawal from Mr Arafat's compound was seen in Israel as an unconditional surrender to US pressure. Mr Sharon initially demanded that dozens of wanted men holed up with Mr Arafat come out.

Immediately after Mr Sharon informed his Cabinet on Sunday that troops must withdraw, he left on a three-day visit to Russia.

"Sharon is leaving behind a colossal failure, the most notable failure since the beginning of his term in office," commentator Hemi Shalev wrote in the newspaper, Maariv.

The Cabinet approved the siege last week in response to a suicide bombing on a Tel Aviv bus in which six people were killed. At the time, it was portrayed as a compromise between Mr Sharon, who was pushing for Arafat's expulsion, and security chiefs who said ousting the Palestinian leader was counterproductive.

"We didn't consider (last week) how much the United States has already started counting down to the strike against Iraq," said Housing Minister Natan Sharansky. "The decision was made in haste, and this is the result."

Tourism Minister Yitzhak Levy also said the decision to besiege Mr Arafat was based on an "erroneous assessments," though he said the siege would weaken Mr Arafat in the long run.

Critics said Mr Sharon failed to take into account that the operation against Mr Arafat would interfere with US efforts to win Arab and UN support for a campaign against Iraq.

Mr Sharon also mistakenly thought the siege would force Mr Arafat to seek exile or give up the wanted men, critics said.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy was killed in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus when soldiers fired from tanks at children who threw stones while on their way to school, doctors said.