Military

DATE=05/13/02

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=ISRAEL / PALESTINIANS (L)

NUMBER=2-289727

BYLINE=ROSS DUNN

DATELINE=JERUSALEM

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has left his headquarters in Ramallah for the first time since December to undertake a tour of battle-scarred areas of the West Bank. He went first to Bethlehem and then to Jenin, two of the towns hit hard during last month's Israeli military offensive. Ross Dunn in Jerusalem has more on the story.

TEXT: Mr. Arafat, who was confined by Israeli troops to Ramallah since December, flew by helicopter to Bethlehem (Monday).

A Palestinian pipe and drum band greeted him, on his way to the Church of the Nativity, built over the grotto where tradition holds Jesus was born.

The church was under Israeli siege for nearly six weeks until an agreement was reached last week that sent 13 Palestinian militants wanted by Israel into exile abroad. Other Palestinian gunmen that had been in the church were sent to the Gaza Strip.

After visiting Bethlehem, Mr. Arafat then flew to the West Bank city of Jenin, which was the scene last month of heavy fighting between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants. Israel has blocked a U-N investigation into the conduct of soldiers who entered the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin in pursuit of those suspected of launching suicide-bombing missions.

Before his tour began, Mr. Arafat spoke out against a decision of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Likud Party to oppose the establishment of a Palestinian State.

Mr. Arafat called the resolution the destruction of the Oslo accords, the first-ever peace agreements between Israel and the Palestinians that were signed in Norway in 1993.

The Palestinian leader had not left the West Bank town of Ramallah since December, after Israeli forces destroyed his helicopters, effectively leaving him grounded.

Mr. Arafat used a helicopter supplied by the Jordanian government for his West Bank tour on Monday.

His trip was due to end in Nablus, the Palestinian commercial and financial center of the West Bank, another place where heavy fighting has taken place in recent weeks between Palestinian militants and Israeli troops. (Signed)

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