US envoy Zinni meets Arafat under siege

11:45 am

RAMALLAH - US Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni met Yasser Arafat under the guns of Israeli tanks on Friday, but Israel kept up its fierce West Bank offensive despite Washington's call for a withdrawal.

Twenty-five Palestinians were killed overnight and on Friday, among them six Hamas militants, including one accused by Israel of masterminding a suicide bombing which killed 26 Israelis last week. The Islamic group vowed "cruel" retaliation.

An Israeli missile strike killed three Palestinians in a refugee camp near Nablus, Palestinian sources said. The men were not immediately identified and Israeli sources had no comment.

The Israeli army said one of its soldiers was killed in an exchange of fire in a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Jenin, one of the centres of the military offensive aimed at rooting out suicide bombers.

In a new move certain to inflame tempers, Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said Israeli troops forced their way into his home on Friday on the pretext of conducting a search. The army had no comment.

Despite that, US President George W Bush's intervention and Israel's decision to let Zinni meet Arafat in his besieged headquarters in Ramallah raised a glimmer of hope for progress toward staunching more than 18 months of bloodshed.

However, officials on both sides said Bush's statement left Israel leeway to pursue its offensive, which has led to the reoccupation of every West Bank city except Jericho, until Secretary of State Colin Powell visits the region next week.

Raising the spectre of Middle East conflict spreading to a second front, Israeli jets hit the outskirts of Lebanese border towns after Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrillas attacked a number of Israeli positions in a disputed frontier area, witnesses said.

Palestinian officials said Zinni and Arafat agreed at a 90-minute meeting that a series of "broad US-Palestinian meetings would be held in the coming hours".

They later said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had refused to let Arafat meet the Palestinian officials who were due to see Zinni and the talks with Zinni might be scrapped.

Explosions and gunfire rang out across Bethlehem, where Christians believe Jesus was born, and up to 200 Palestinian gunmen and civilians remained trapped in the Church of the Nativity in a four-day-old standoff with Israeli troops.

Four priests managed to slip out of the church, with the army's help, the military said.

Fighting was also intense in the Palestinian-ruled cities of Nablus and Jenin but the deadliest single Israeli attack centred on the northern West Bank village of Toubas.

The Islamic militant group Hamas confirmed six of its members, including Qais Idwan, head of its military wing in nearby Jenin, were killed when the house they were in was bombarded by Israeli tanks and helicopter gunships.

An Israeli security source said Idwan was suspected of being behind the devastating bombing in the Israeli coastal city of Netanya at the start of the Jewish holiday of Passover last week which helped trigger the army's offensive in Palestinian areas.

"Our retaliation will be very harsh and cruel according to the measure of the crime," Sheikh Jamal Abu al-Heija, a Hamas political official in Jenin, said.

Hamas has been at the forefront of a bombing campaign against Israelis since the start of the Palestinian uprising. Israel has killed dozens of militants in a policy it justifies as self-defence, but Palestinians call assassination.

At least 1188 Palestinians and 414 Israelis have been killed since the uprising began.

Zinni, a former Marine Corps general, was the first foreign dignitary allowed in by Israel for face-to-face talks with Arafat since its forces smashed into his compound a week ago.

The first crack in Israel's "isolation" of Arafat opened up after Bush signalled a policy shift by pressing Israel to end its latest military campaign in the West Bank.

Bush, who had previously defended Israel's actions as an understandable response to recent suicide bombings, switched course under pressure from European and Arab allies.

Sharon often pays heed to such admonitions from Washington, which provides Israel with $US3 billion in annual aid.

Nine other Palestinians were killed in Nablus, the West Bank's biggest city, and a police officer and four others were killed in Jenin, Palestinian officials and witnesses said.

Ali Jabbarin, deputy director of al-Razi Hospital in Jenin, said one man was wounded by Israeli gunfire outside the hospital, but bled to death because troops prevented nurses from reaching him. The army denied it blocked access to the hospital.

Masked Palestinian gunmen shot dead three men suspected of collaborating with Israeli forces in their West Bank village of Toubas, near Jenin, on Friday, Palestinian sources said.

Along with calling for an Israeli withdrawal, Bush called on the Palestinians to stop suicide bombings in their revolt against Israeli occupation and criticised Arafat.

Opinion polls published on Friday showed 72 per cent of Israelis supported waging "widescale war" in the West Bank and the current offensive had boosted support for Sharon.

- REUTERS

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