Sharon criticised after troops leave Arafat's HQ

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon came under fierce criticism today for the bungled 10-day siege of Yasser Arafat’s compound.

Troops withdrew from the shattered West Bank headquarters yesterday after Sharon’s government came under intense pressure from the US.

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

At Arafat’s compound in Ramallah today, Israeli troops were out of sight - even though they still control the town, as well as most other population centres in the West Bank.

Sharon had demanded the surrender of dozens of wanted men holed up with the Palestinian leader.

“Israel folded,” read today’s headline in the Maariv newspaper.

Immediately after Sharon told his Cabinet yesterday that the troops must withdraw, the premier 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 Maariv.

The siege was launched last week in response to a suicide bombing on a Tel Aviv bus which killed six people.

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

“We didn’t consider 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.”

In the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, a 43-year-old Palestinian woman was in a coma after she was wounded by shrapnel when two Israeli tank shells hit her home, doctors and her brother said.

Palestinians said the shells were fired without provocation.

The Israeli military denied any tank shells were fired, saying soldiers fired assault rifles after mortar shells fell near an army post.