HIGHLIGHTS: Occupation Army Describes Incursion as Routine||Arafat Says Israel Tried to Kill Him Thursday||Sharon Says Palestinians Are Conducting a "Merciless Campaign" to Break Israel's Resolve|| STORY: Israeli armor rumbled into the center of the West Bank city of Jenin on Friday, keeping pressure on the Palestinians a day after tanks and troops stormed Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah.

Occupation soldiers fired in the air as the 30-vehicle column moved through Jenin, regarded by Israel as a stronghold for militants behind bomber attacks, but no fighting was reported. The army said the force was on routine patrol.

The bombing near Afula in which 17 Israelis were killed Wednesday and the occupation army push into Arafat's compound before a visit by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Washington next week on Thursday, undercut intensified international diplomacy aimed at breaking a vicious cycle of Middle East violence and reviving peace talks.

ARAFAT DEFIANT

At least 1,382 Palestinians and 503 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinians rose up against Israeli occupation in September 2000.

Flashing V-for-victory signs as he stepped out of his headquarters in Ramallah, Arafat vowed: "No one can defeat the Palestinian people."

He pointed out the dust and debris showered on his bedroom. A mirror was shattered and bullet holes pierced the walls.
"I was supposed to sleep here but I had work to do downstairs and did not go to sleep. They shelled this room wanting me to be here," Arafat told reporters, according to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.

The Israeli military denied targeting the Palestinian leader, who often works through the night in his nearby office.
Washington has warned Israel against harming or toppling Arafat.

But U.S. officials sharpened criticism of him after the bombing, with White House spokesman Ari Fleischer saying: "In the president's eyes, Yasser Arafat has never played a role of someone who can be trusted and who is effective."

"MERCILESS CAMPAIGN"

Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said the raid in Ramallah aimed "to focus responsibility on the behavior of the Palestinian Authority for terror in general and the current wave in particular."

Palestinian officials have said Israeli occupation in the West Bank and the army's encirclement of Palestinian cities -- a measure Israel says is necessary to stop bombings -- breed hatred that leads to such attacks.

Palestinian forces carried out the body of a comrade killed in the compound, already scarred from a five-week Israeli army siege, which ended little over a month ago.

In an attack near Ramallah on Thursday, Palestinian Resistance men killed a Jewish settler traveling in a car.

Sharon said Israel was facing a "merciless campaign" conducted by Arafat aimed at breaking Israel's resolve. "We will continue this battle in the ways we think are most suited and we will win," he told an economic conference in Tel Aviv.

Israeli forces have been mounting almost daily rolling raids into Palestinian cities since the end early last month of a sweeping West Bank offensive launched after a wave of bombings killed dozens of Israelis.

PHOTO CAPTION


Israeli tanks enter the West Bank town of Jenin, June 5, 2002. A Palestinian attacker exploded a powerful car bomb next to an Israeli bus on Wednesday, igniting an inferno and killing at least 16 Israelis. Hours after the bombing, Israeli tanks rolled into Jenin, a West Bank city regarded by Israel as a militant stronghold. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
- Jun 05 11:58 AM ET