Israeli troops completed the takeover of every major Palestinian city in the West Bank last night, as international diplomatic pressure mounted for their withdrawal. David Horovitz reports from Jerusalem.
Meanwhile President Hosni Mubarak severed all but diplomatic contacts between Egypt and Israel and is reported to have warned the US of dire consequences if the incursions continued.
The focus of day six of the Israeli assault was the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem's Manger Square, which was under siege last night with over 100 people inside. Apart from relief workers and other civilians, members of the al-Aqsa Brigades, a group loyal to the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, which has claimed responsibility for numerous suicide bombings, were hiding out there - the last safe haven in a city fully reoccupied by the Israeli army.
Four more Palestinians were reported killed in the city yesterday. Aides to Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, said the army would stay around the church until the gunmen surrendered. A 26th victim of last week's Netanya suicide bombing died yesterday.
Further north, the army last night moved into Nablus, the West Bank's largest city, meaning that all eight main Palestinian population centres handed over to Mr Arafat's Palestinian Authority in 1995 are again under Israeli control, along with several smaller towns.
Six Palestinians - four gunmen, and two civilians including a teenage boy - and an Israeli reserve soldier were reported killed in heavy fighting in Jenin. South of Ramallah, troops used tear gas and batons to disperse a group of peace activists, Israeli Jews and Arabs among them, who tried to enter the city with supplies. Inside Ramallah, where Israel began releasing some of the 800 men it had rounded up since Friday, Mr Arafat remained trapped in his offices.
Israeli troops brought him water, food and medical supplies. Asked in a telephone interview whether he might now agree to voluntary exile, he replied: "Heaven forbid. Martyrdom, martyrdom, martyrdom," adding, "Is this his homeland or mine?"
Terming its actions a show of "solidarity" with the Palestinians, Hizbullah fired mortar shells and rockets at Israeli troops across the one disputed area of the Israeli-Lebanese border, prompting frantic behind-the-scenes diplomatic activity, with the US intervening to try to prevent an escalated confrontation on a second front.
Lebanese police used tear gas and water hoses against thousands of protesters who marched on the US embassy in Beirut, and there were protests again in Egypt. Cairo announced it was cutting all contacts with Israel. Significantly, Arab League foreign ministers postponed an emergency gathering in Cairo to Saturday.
The Bush Administration, still disinclined to press Israel to comply with Saturday's UN demand for a troop withdrawal, suggested that substantive diplomatic negotiations could resume before a ceasefire took hold. But its peace envoy, Gen Anthony Zinni, again failed to get Mr Sharon's permission to visit Mr Arafat.
In tacitly backing the Israeli operation, the US is now more clearly at odds with the European Union. In Brussels, European Commission President told the US to give up its key mediating role because it had failed, He said there could be "no military solution" and the siege on Mr Arafat should be lifted and Israeli troops withdrawn from all Palestinian areas.
Mr Sharon has also blocked efforts by the Spanish Prime Minister to make direct contact with Mr Arafat, reportedly telling him: "You are trying to talk to the chief of the terrorists."