Israeli forces backed by tanks and helicopters stepped up their West Bank offensive today, killing 24 Palestinians and rounding up hundreds more ahead of the likely arrival on Sunday of the US Secretary of State Gen Colin Powell.
Gen Powell is expected to visit Israel, try to arrange a meeting with Palestinian President Mr Yasser Arafat and see leaders of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt during his visit.
In a town near Jenin this evening, six members of the radical Islamic group Hamas were killed by an Israeli helicopter missile attack.
Heavy fighting was reported in the northern West Bank towns of Nablus and Jenin while elsewhere Israel maintained its grip despite US calls to pull back.
Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Mr Ben Eliezer said the eight-day-old offensive would continue "for the moment".
Israeli troops battled to consolidate their hold on Nablus, the largest city in the northern West Bank, killing 22 Palestinians in the city and the nearby village of Tubas, according to Palestinian sources.
Among those dead in Tubas were six Hamas militants killed when an Israeli helicopter gunship firing missiles destroyed the building they were holed up in, a Palestinian official said. Hamas officials said they would retaliate.
In the area of Bethlehem, Israeli soldiers kept up their siege of Palestinian gunmen in the Church of the Nativity and arrested hundreds of other Palestinians, including a senior intelligence officer.
In the nearby town of Al-Khader, the army encirled the main mosque and arrested 150 men as they came out of mid-day prayers. Israeli troops later arrested another 50 men in their houses, adding to some 70 earlier reported taken into custody.
The army, which has kept Mr Arafat under siege for a week in the city of Ramallah, did not spare the Palestinian leadership in the new blitz. Information minister Mr Yasser Abed Rabbo said Israeli troops stormed his house outside Ramallah and searched it for half an hour.
The Israeli army has captured six out of eight major cities or towns on the West Bank after their biggest push in the Palestinian territories since the 1967 Middle East war.
In Europe the new US initiative in the region was welcomed by the German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin who said they welcomed US President George W. Bush's intervention in the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.
Speaking to reporters ahead of bilateral talks in Berlin, both leaders said the US move represented a chance of an end to bloodshed.
AFP and