Israel Threatens to Send Troops After Militants

JERUSALEM — One day after a double suicide bombing in a busy outdoor market here, Israel on Thursday threatened to send security forces into Palestinian-ruled areas to seize militants unless Yasser Arafat takes tougher action to stop such attacks.

The Israeli threat to mount incursions into areas under Palestinian control drew immediate anger from Palestinian officials, who warned that such actions could deal a final blow to the faltering peace process.

“We consider this a declaration of war,” said Nabil abu Rudaineh, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Arafat, speaking in the West Bank city of Jericho. “These dangerous measures, if they are continued, will destroy the peace process.”

The warning by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was its most explicit to date, indicating that Israel is prepared, unless Arafat acts, to carry out raids inside Palestinian-controlled cities and villages. But it was viewed here primarily as an effort to intensify pressure on the Palestinian leader to order his own crackdown, and not as an indicator of immediate action by Israel.

Israel also announced a series of punitive measures against the Palestinian Authority in the wake of the synchronized bombings in Jerusalem’s central produce market. The blasts left 15 dead, including the two bombers, and nearly 170 wounded.

The attacks were the deadliest since Netanyahu came to power in June 1996 on the strength of a promise to provide his nation, weary of war and violence, with both peace and security.

As 11 of the victims were laid to rest at cemeteries across Jerusalem on Thursday, tears and grief for those lost mingled with angry recriminations toward the Netanyahu government--unable, just like others before it, to stop attacks against Israeli civilians.

“We have too soft a government,” declared Avraham Nissim, an elderly mourner at the funeral of Sami Malka, 44. Shaking with anger, Nissim said he does not believe that the Palestinians will ever allow Israelis to live without fear.

Immediately after Wednesday’s bombings, Israel said it would not resume peace talks with the Palestinians, which broke off four months ago. The negotiations broke off in March over Israel’s decision to launch construction of a new Jewish housing project in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim as their future capital.

In Washington, a U.S. official said Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is considering a trip to the Middle East, which would be her first since taking office in January.

Overnight, Israeli troops arrested 28 Palestinians in areas controlled by Israel in the West Bank. An Israeli army spokeswoman said without elaboration that those arrested were suspected of involvement in “terrorist activities.”

Israel also announced plans Thursday for other steps against the Palestinian Authority, including withholding tax revenues--estimated at millions of dollars each year--and jamming Palestinian radio and television broadcasts.

Both actions were likely to require several days to take effect, Israeli officials said.

David Bar-Illan, a senior aide to the Israeli prime minister, said Israel’s primary demand is that the Palestinian Authority carry out commitments, contained in the peace agreements between the two sides, to dismantle the infrastructure of such militant Islamic movements as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

If it becomes clear that Arafat will not crack down to Israel’s satisfaction on Palestinian militants, Bar-Illan said, Israel will not hesitate “to go in there and do it ourselves. Terrorism knows no boundaries.”

Iziddin al-Qassam, the military wing of Hamas, claimed responsibility for the Jerusalem bombing in a leaflet Wednesday.

But an Israeli security official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said investigators remained unsure of the statement’s authenticity and have not yet identified the two bombers, although the blasts left them recognizable. The official said other factors, including the fact that they were not known to Israeli security forces, may indicate that the men entered Israel from abroad, not from the Palestinian territories.

U.S. officials, in direct and indirect contacts with Arafat and other Palestinian leaders since the bombings, have strongly urged them to resume security cooperation with Israel and take immediate steps to break up the extremist groups’ infrastructure.

It was unclear Thursday to what extent Arafat was acting on the recommendations.

At least publicly, Palestinian security officials repeatedly denied Israeli media reports that they had arrested more than a dozen Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists near Bethlehem, just south of Jerusalem.

Col. Jibril Rajoub, who heads Arafat’s Preventive Security Service in the West Bank, said no arrests had been made and blamed Israel’s policies for the Jerusalem attack.

Brig. Gen. Ghazi Jabali, chief of the Palestinian police, also defied an arrest warrant issued by Israel on Thursday, saying the Israelis have “no right even to think about arresting” him. The Israeli government accuses Jabali of involvement in an aborted scheme early last month to send three Palestinian police officers to shoot at Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

Other Palestinian officials rejected Israeli claims that Arafat has failed to act strongly enough against terrorism, but also said the Palestinian Authority should not be held responsible for attacks outside the limits of its territory.

“We are not responsible for the Israeli security in Jerusalem, which is still under occupation,” said Palestinian legislator Marwan Barghouti, who heads Arafat’s Fatah faction in the West Bank.

Hanan Mikhail-Ashrawi, the Palestinian minister for higher education, said she fears that the Israeli measures will aggravate the tense situation and lead to increasing distrust between the two sides.

But against a growing tide of anger that threatens to swamp any further attempts to make peace, Israeli leftist writer David Grossman issued a poignant appeal Thursday. In a commentary carried in the newspaper Maariv, Grossman urged Washington to get involved to save Israelis and Palestinians from themselves.

The two sides, he wrote, “are captives of their history and psychology and have lost the ability to escape it. If anyone in the world still cares what is happening here, it is better that he do something to force the leaders of the sides to begin talking seriously.”

Ramit Plushnick of The Times’ Jerusalem Bureau contributed to this report.