Shooting erupted near the birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem and Israeli tanks ploughed into the West Bank's biggest city yesterday as Israel vowed to pursue its offensive.
Three explosions and heavy machinegun fire echoed around Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, on the site where Christ was said to have been born, but Israel denied it was trying to storm the church to winkle out some 200 Palestinians holed up inside.
Israeli armor thrust toward the heart of Nablus, the biggest West Bank city, meeting heavy resistance, and tanks shelled a nearby refugee camp, witnesses said. Troops also fought running battles in the northern city of Jenin.
The Israeli offensive, launched last Friday after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 26 Israelis, has enraged Arabs and provoked deep concern around the world that Middle East violence may be sliding out of control. Israel's closest ally, the US, has apparently been reluctant to intervene.
Two top EU envoys arrived in Israel on an urgent mission to press for a ceasefire.
But Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon slamned the door to their meeting Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, besieged at his West Bank headquarters since Friday, and said Israel's military drive to uproot "terror" would continue.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique were due to meet Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer as well as international peace mediators later yesterday, diplomats said.
"The decision is that [Arafat] will stay in the place where he is and he will be isolated," Sharon told reporters after a late-night meeting of his security Cabinet.
Sharon said peace talks with Palestinians would resume only "when there will be a full cessation of terror, hostilities and incitement."
He also accused Syria and Iran of being responsible for recent cross-border attacks by Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas and threatened to take "all actions" required to prevent them.
Syrian troops took up new positions in eastern Lebanon yesterday in what diplomats saw as an attempt to lessen direct confrontation with Israel, which last year hit Syrian troops twice in Lebanon in retaliation for Hezbollah attacks.
"We saw that Syria is giving support and backing to what is going on," Sharon said during a visit to the Northern Command headquarters, a day after a soldier was seriously wounded in a Hezbollah attack on an Israeli border position.
Sharon was due to meet US Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni later in the day and Israeli political sources said the Israeli leader might give Zinni the go-ahead to meet Arafat.
Palestinian officials said the EU envoys, despatched after an emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers, must be granted access to Arafat, or no other Palestinians would meet them.
Palestinians say Sharon's offensive aims to oust or kill Arafat, destroy his Palestinian Authority, scrap interim peace deals signed since 1993 and block their hopes of independence. Israel says it will not harm the Palestinian leader.
At the UN, Arab nations vowed late on Wednesday to push to a Security Council vote a draft resolution demanding the withdrawal of Israeli forces from West Bank towns.
The measure appeared to be unacceptable to Israel's main ally, the US. US envoys, who earlier threatened a veto, said only that Washington was now studying it. The council agreed to delay a vote until later yesterday for more consultations.
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