Sharon announces new Israeli buffer zones

Israel continues stepped-up attacks

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced Thursday his government will set up buffer zones aimed at achieving "security separation" to protect Israelis from Palestinian attacks.

"In order to increase the security of Israeli subjects, we have decided to set up buffer zones in order to achieve security … and to set up obstacles along the border zones," Sharon said during a televised speech.

When pressed by reporters, he provided few details of the buffer zones.

Sharon also said that while Israel was "all committed to peace" which would require "painful concessions," Israelis would "continue to fight terrorists with all our strength."

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About an hour before Sharon spoke, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat told a news conference in Ramallah that the Palestinian Authority remains committed to a cease-fire he declared December 16.

Sharon's announcement followed a new surge of violence in the region, with Israel striking back at what some officials called "guerrilla war" conducted by Palestinians.

Strikes in Rafah and Gaza City

Shortly before his speech, Israeli forces launched strikes in Gaza against Palestinian targets in Rafah and Gaza City, the Israel Defense Forces said.

The IDF said a building hit in Rafah had been used by military intelligence and Force 17, the elite guard corps for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Arafat was in Ramallah in the West Bank and was not harmed. The IDF said the Palestinian naval police headquarters was hit in Gaza City.

Earlier Thursday, Israeli helicopter gunship attacked Palestinian Authority facilities in Gaza and the West Bank, while tanks and troops entered Gaza, clashing with Palestinian gunmen. Five Palestinians were killed in a firefight in the Gaza city of Rafah, the Palestinian sources said.

The Israel Defense Forces said it hit the Palestinian police headquarters in Nablus, an office of Force 17 in Ramallah, and a military, intelligence and Force 17 compound in Rafah. Force 17 is Arafat's elite security guard.

Israeli troops and tanks entered an area of Gaza City from two directions, exchanging fire with residents in the deepest incursion there by Israelis in the past 17 months of violence, Palestinian sources said. Israeli forces blew up a television transmission tower in Gaza, knocking Palestinian radio and television stations off the air.

The Palestinian Authority said: "The Sharon government and its occupation forces continued their aggressive bloody campaign against the Palestinian people" with its raids Wednesday and Thursday.

The IDF said the attacks were in response to recent attacks on Israelis. Those attacks began with the suicide bombing of a West Bank pizzeria on Saturday continued through Tuesday with an ambush at a military checkpoint that left six Israeli soldiers dead.

Arrest of assassination suspects

Meanwhile, three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -- which claimed responsibility for the assassination of an Israeli Cabinet member -- were arrested Thursday, Palestinian security officials said.

When Sharon was asked for his response to the arrests, he said only that his government was checking the reports.

The men arrested by Palestinian security forces are said to be suspects in the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rechavam Ze'evi last October. Arrested were Basel Asmar, Hamdi Koran and Ahed Abu Gholmi. Gholmi is the head of the PFLP military wing. The early morning raid on a house in Nablus came on direct orders from Arafat, Palestinian security officials said.

Israeli security officials said they believed the Palestinian Authority did have the suspects in custody. However, those Israeli sources said the arrests are not enough and Arafat's compound will remain ringed by Israeli tanks until the suspects and the leadership of the PFLP are put on trial.

Israel has cited the failure of Palestinian officials to make arrests in the case as the main reason they have limited Arafa's movements to the compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah, which is surrounded by Israeli tanks.

The PFLP is a Palestinian militant group that has committed numerous international terrorist attacks and has conducted attacks against Israeli or moderate Arab targets, according to the U.S. State Department. The group rejects anything less than a total Israeli withdrawal from lands occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem.