Israel halts destruction in siege

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat talks on a mobile phone as aides look on in his Ramallah office on Sunday.

Israel's army says it has halted the destruction of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah. The statement follows a siege that has lasted since Thursday, when Israeli forces began demolishing parts of Arafat's headquarters in response to two suicide attacks on Israelis last week.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said that his government had warned the Palestinian Authority about suicide bombings, and that "the Palestinian leadership did not give orders to stop it." Peres also said that because the Palestinian Authority had refused to police its own people, Israel's hand was forced.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has been holed up in his headquarters since the siege began. He said the situation was "really dreadful" in a cellular phone call to Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erakat, who was in Jericho, about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) east of Jerusalem. Erakat said that Arafat was in good spirits, though the Palestinian leader had no running water, no landline phones, and a shortage of food and medicine.

Shimon Peres said the water had been cut off by accident. Israel's army said it was sending food and water to the people inside Arafat's office, which a CNN correspondent described as the only building left relatively undamaged.

As many as 300 other Palestinians are there with Arafat. Israel says that 50 of those are suspected terrorists, but the Palestinian Authority says it has no intention whatsoever of handing any of them over to the Israelis. The chief Palestinian representative to the United States, Hasan Abdel Rahman, said that the purpose of the siege was "to humiliate Yasser Arafat, in the eyes of his people, by showing him handing his own officials to the Israeli army."

A senior Palestinian official has warned Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that there would be grave consequences throughout the Middle East-as well as in the West Bank and Gaza-if any harm came to Arafat. Israeli officials said that the siege was aimed at isolating Arafat, but that the Palestinian leader would not be harmed.

Meanwhile, protests against the siege of Yasser Arafat have erupted in several cities throughout the West Bank and Gaza. A CNN correspondent reported that four Palestinians died in overnight clashes, and another person was killed in a demonstration in the West Bank.