Residents Cower in Ramallah, Now a Ghost Town Occupied by Israelis">

RAMALLAH, West Bank, March 31 — This once bustling hillside city, the commercial, political and intellectual capital of the Palestinian West Bank, was a ghost town today, quiet except for Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers.

On the third day of the siege of Yasir Arafat's compound, Israeli soldiers have all but taken over the city. They have sandbagged positions and put snipers on rooftops. They have intensified their hunt, house to house, building to building, for any Palestinian men they can find, dragging them off, sometimes blindfolded, for questioning.

The Israeli tanks and armored bulldozers have crushed automobiles (including a few BMW's), knocked over power poles and torn up water mains. In the center of town, hardly anyone dares venture outside, and even in remote neighborhoods, it is rare to see anyone, not even a face peeping from a window.

Electricity and running water are out in some sections of town. With stores closed, food is running out.