RAMALLAH, JERUSALEM, Palestine

After smashing in to Arafat's compound with tanks, Israeli troops advanced from room to room, fighting Arafat's bodyguards.

At least five Palestinians - including one of Arafat's bodyguards - are reported to have been killed and 30 wounded. More than 60 are said to have been detained.

The three-story building was plunged into darkness when Israeli soldiers cut off electricity and destroyed a generator Friday night. The phone lines were blocked, leaving Arafat with a cell phone as his only connection to the outside world.

Israeli forces swept into Ramallah, nine miles north of Jerusalem, after Israel declared Arafat its enemy and vowed to isolate him. Tanks knocked down walls and took positions inside the compound for the first time since the conflict began.

The Qatar-based Al Jazeera Television Channel reported that Israeli troops broke into the building where Arafat is sitting, adding that there was exchange of fires between Arafat's bodyguards and Israeli special troops taking place from one room to another.

Arafat, who had tried to head off the assault with a last-ditch appeal for an unconditional cease-fire late Thursday, said he was under tank and missile attack but remained defiant. "They want me to become a prisoner or fugitive, or dead," he told the Al-Jazeera. "But I tell them no, (I'll be) a martyr, a martyr, a martyr."

"Nobody is shaken, afraid, or retreating," Arafat said in a telephone interview aired on Palestinian television. "We are going to Jerusalem, giving millions of martyrs on the way."

Israel said it had no plans to kill or capture Arafat and merely wanted to isolate him. Ariel Sharon made his bitterest attack on the Palestinian leader. "Arafat is an enemy, and at this stage he will be isolated," Sharon told a televised news conference Friday morning, listing Palestinian attacks that had precipitated the cabinet decision, including Wednesday night's human bombing in a Netanya hotel that killed 22 people.

Arafat said his people would never give up their fight for an independent state, and that he hoped the Israeli operation would make him a martyr.

Israel has warned that the Ramallah offensive is just the beginning of a long campaign against Palestinians.

Palestinian hospital sources said at least four defenders of the city and a civilian were killed and over 30 people, mostly civilians, injured by Israeli bullets.

Abu-Dhabi satellite television showed Israeli snipers kill a Palestinian civilian in a cold-blooded manner as he walked outside his home.

The Israeli army said an Israeli officer was killed and four soldiers injured.


Worshipers Attacked in the Holy Mosque

Hundreds of Israeli policemen attacked Muslim worshipers without warning using stun and smoke grenades as well as live ammunition.

The Mufti of Palestine, Ikrema Sabri, said five Palestinian worshipers were injured.

He described the Israeli police onslaught as "a blunt provocation."

"Our people came to worship God in this House of God, they were calm, and obviously the Jews didn't like this, which explains their provocative behavior."


Security Council Meets

Amid growing international concern over the violence, the U.N. Security Council called an emergency session late on Friday at the initiative of Palestinian and other Arab delegates.

Opening a late emergency debate at the United Nations Security Council in New York, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told Israel to halt its assault and said Palestinians must stop "horrific terrorist attacks" against Israeli civilians.

"Israel should halt its assault on the Palestinian authority," Annan told delegates.

"Destroying the Palestinian Authority will not bring Israel closer to peace."

But he added: "Terrorism will not bring the Palestinian people closer to their long-deserved claim of the right to self-determination."

Russia and France were also critical of the Israeli operation, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said the offensive "isn't a way that could help find a political solution," and called for dialogue with Arafat.

French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine criticized Israel's effort to "asphyxiate Arafat."

United States Secretary of State Colin Powell said friday night that he had received assurances from Israel that Arafat would not be harmed. Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah said Friday afternoon that he had received a similar promise from the U.S.

The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has also denounced such attacks and urged Arafat to rein in Palestinian militants.

Powell condemned the recent string of attacks that have killed Israeli civilians, and called on Arafat to do more to end them. He said the attacks have destroyed the "guarded optimism" U.S. officials had felt about resuming the peace process.

He added that the Israelis have assured him they do not intend to occupy the Arab areas in the West Bank and Gaza "for some extended period. They are going in to find the terrorists, to pick up weapons," he said.



Shaikh Yassin, 'Operation Affirms Palestinian Determination'

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder and spiritual leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, has affirmed that the martyrdom operation in Netanya had reflected the Palestinian people's determination to defend themselves, their lands, country and holy shrines.

Shaikh Yassin underlined that the operation confirmed that the entire Palestinian people were all commandos and would never surrender regardless of the Zionist enemy's strength or continuation of international collusion.


Demonstrations Against Israel

GAZA
Thousands of Palestinians marched on Friday to show support for Arafat and Intifada.

LEBANON
At entrances to the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp in south Lebanon, Palestinians burned tires to protest the Israeli attacks. Shops and schools were closed as thousands of angry Palestinians took to the streets shouting anti-Israel slogans and waving Palestinian flags.

JORDAN
Palestinian refugees in two camps near Amman, called for jihad, or holy war, and for the removal of the Israeli ambassador from the country. Riot police threw tear gas canisters at hundreds of refugees to prevent them from marching outside the Wihdat camp in an anti-Israel protest. In the heart of the Jordanian capital, heavy police presence confined anti-Israeli protests to the mosques.

SYRIA
Syrian police used water cannons and truncheons to prevent some 2,000 Palestinian protesters in the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus from marching toward the U.S. Embassy.

EGYPT
Several hundred Muslim worshippers at Cairo's Al-Azhar Mosque called on Arab leaders to reject normalization of relations with the Jewish state. "Our leaders, open the door to jihad!" they shouted.

Sharon Worse Than Hitler

Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told state-run radio that "the Israeli barbarism and anarchy" had surpassed the acts of Adolf Hitler. "These are a bunch of thugs who want to destroy and silence the voice of the Palestinian people," Ismail said.