Netzarim, Joseph's Tomb for Palestinians, Israelis

By Karin Laub

JERUSALEM (AP): Day after day, for more than a week, two tiny Israeli military posts manned by just by a few soldiers huddling behind fortified walls have been battered by angry Palestinian crowds with rocks, firebombs and bullets.

The besieged troops have returned heavy fire, shooting at rioters through tiny rifle slits, with helicopters unleashing rockets to repel gunmen. More than two dozen Palestinians have been killed at the two sites, including four on Friday.

For Israelis and Palestinians alike the outposts -- one at Joseph's Tomb in the West Bank town of Nablus and the Netzarim outpost in the Gaza Strip -- have taken on a meaning far beyond their actual strategic importance.

To Palestinians, the two outposts are thorns in the side, galling reminders that Israel still controls large tracts of land they want to claim for a state. On the Palestinian side, symbolic triumphs -- a teen-ager tearing the Israeli flag from the Netzarim flagpole, a bulldozer driving into the wall of Joseph's Tomb -- are celebrated like major military victories.

To Israel -- where retreat under fire is seen a dangerous display of weakness -- holding down the fort is all-important. The two outposts are Israel's most vulnerable positions, invariably attracting large crowds in search of targets for venting their anger.

On Friday, after two Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in rock-throwing clashes outside Nablus, two dozen gunmen broke away from the crowd, headed to Joseph's Tomb and pumped bullets into the compound, drawing Israeli return fire.

The gunmen had been under orders not to shoot during the earlier rock-throwing protests, in order to prevent more Palestinian casualties.

"But when the first boy was killed, they became angry and didn't obey our orders," said Palestinian activist Bassam Naim. "They came to Joseph's Tomb and now we can't stop them."

Israel's resolve to hold its positions was tested by the death of an Israeli border policeman, Mathat Yosef, who was shot inside Joseph's Tomb last weekend and bled to death after Palestinian fire kept Israeli medics away for five hours.

Even in the violent chaos of recent days, Yosef's death sprang into sharp relief. Many Israelis felt the army had violated its pledge not to abandon wounded fighters.

The army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, defended his choice of not using heavier firepower to free the trapped border policeman. Explaining his dilemma, Mofaz said he would have had to recapture a large chunk of Palestinian-controlled Nablus, at the risk of terrible bloodshed, to regain access to Joseph's Tomb, where six Israeli soldiers were killed in similar circumstances in 1996.

Eventually, troops did break free a path, with helicopters firing missile to disperse Palestinian gunmen long enough to allow medics to remove Yosef's body.

Israeli media said Mofaz has asked for permission to evacuate Joseph's Tomb, considering the site indefensible, but that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has vetoed the idea on political grounds, leading to growing friction between the two men.

Joseph's Tomb and the Netzarim settlement, along with its army post of the same name, would likely be among the first to be dismantled under a peace treaty, which would give define the borders of a Palestinian state.

Netzarim is an isolated settlement with only 60 families, a tiny dot in a Palestinian sea. The same holds true for Joseph's Tomb, which only a small minority of observant Jews believe to be the burial site of the biblical patriarch.

Were Netzarim and Joseph's Tomb to remain intact, Israel would not be able to meet its promise to the Palestinians that their state will have territorial contiguity.

However, even though Barak has offered to hand the Palestinian more than 90 percent of the West Bank in a peace treaty, he has said he will not act under the threat of violence.

Thus, he is holding on to the enclaves, even though the daily bloodshed there may make it increasingly difficult to restore calm and eventually resume peace talks.

A commentary in the Haaretz daily, critical of Barak, said Netzarim and Joseph's Tomb have become symbols of Israel's endurance and steadfastness.

"During the past week, the IDF fought at Netzarim as though ... it were a stronghold whose face is crucial to the nation's morale," it said.