Jun 30, 2002 5 min read

HEBRON, West Bank (AP) – Israeli troops searched Saturday through heaps of smashed concrete and metal, but found no sign of several wanted Palestinians who Israel said may have escaped massive explosions at the Palestinian headquarters in Hebron. Many Palestinians doubt the men were even inside when the four-day siege ended at a government and security compound early Saturday, maintaining Israel only wanted to deliver another blow to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s administration.

Broken satellite dishes, water tanks, blankets and metal window frames were strewn over an area the size of a city block. Two bulldozers pushed through the piles of rubble.

Israeli officials said weapons and ammunition had been found. Soldiers took an AK-47 found in the debris and carried out some rolled documents.

International observers videotaped the work and interviewed area residents, who were cleaning up shattered glass and picking pieces of metal pipes out of flower beds 150 yards away. Dust and shattered glass coated classrooms, desks and textbooks in a Japanese-funded elementary school nearby.

In its statement after the first explosion, the army said it had rigged the four-story building to blow in the area where the wanted men were hiding. Lt. Col. Olivier Rafowicz, an army spokesman, said that although no bodies had been found, the army remained convinced the wanted men had been inside.

“There are two possibilities: No one is there and they proceeded to escape, or maybe there are some bodies under there,” he said. “Right now, we don’t believe there are bodies there.”

Jibril Rajoub, head of the Palestinian Preventive Security in the West Bank, said that “as far as we know, no one was inside” at the time of the explosions.

“We believed from the first moment that the aim was to destroy the building because it is a symbol for the Palestinian Authority,” Rajoub said.

Several Hebron residents also were skeptical anyone was inside – but most allowed for a slim possibility. They said they want to hear the names of those who Israel believes were inside so they could find out from their families.

Rafowicz said the army had names, but would not release them.

Imad Quttana, a 45-year-old businessman, said he was confident nobody was inside. A half-dozen friends sitting in the shade, watching the bulldozers work about 150 yards away, nodded their heads resolutely.

Army troops surrounded the Hebron compound early Tuesday as part of a West Bank military offensive that has confined some 700,000 Palestinians to their homes while soldiers search the West Bank for Palestinians suspected of links to deadly attacks on Israelis. The open-ended campaign, prompted by a pair of suicide bombings that killed 26 Israelis, began a week and a half ago.

For nearly four days, the army pounded the cement and stone building in Hebron with machine-gun and missile fire and punched holes in the ground floor with bulldozers. Brief breaks were used to try to get the men to surrender.

Patience was running out, and the top Israeli army spokesman, Brig. Gen. Ron Kitrey, warned Thursday the army wouldn’t wait for a peaceful end.

According to the army, Palestinians inside fired on army positions early Friday morning, but then the shooting stopped.

Former Palestinian Cabinet minister Talal Sidr went in later to negotiate a surrender – and left after half an hour, unable to find anyone to negotiate with. Military officials said afterward they were certain the wanted men were inside.

Then Friday night, a captive audience of residents living under curfew next to the compound and glued to the four-day siege from windows and verandahs, noticed something was up. Sidr had left, no more surrender calls were heard and Israeli soldiers casually walked the grounds and into the main building.

Hayat al-Natsheh said she noticed some green lights, but didn’t know what to make of them.

A neighbor, Abdel Hafez Nasser el-Din said people tossed out all sorts of possibilities: “We were thinking many things – explosions, signals for the F-16 planes, sensors for (locating) people inside. But the first explosion was still a surprise.”

When a blast that knocked out a quarter of the building went off, al-Natsheh said she pushed her 19-year-old daughter, Layla, toward an inner hallway and tried to follow but couldn’t move against the pressure.

The two explosions threw cars into the air, tossing them over ledges, tipping some on end, and wiping away the hilltop building used in the past as a base for British, Jordanian and Israeli forces.

“We were all crying, shouting – ‘What happened to my family? What happened to my neighbors?” al-Natsheh said.

But the second blast, nearly four hours later, wasn’t a surprise. One resident said a soldier had warned him to open any intact windows. Just before, soldiers began shouting and residents braced themselves.

On Saturday, residents did their best to pick up the shattered glass, buckets of it sitting by many doorways near the compound. Picking up a chunk of pipe that had blown more than 200 yards and landed next to his house, el-Din said the destruction is frustrating, but tolerated.

“It makes us more and more angry, but we can’t do anything,” he said. “We have no weapons, no tanks.”