Tanks and troops killed three Palestinians in raids on West Bank villages yesterday as Israel tried to impose conditions on a UN mission due to investigate events at the devastated Jenin refugee camp.
Amid fresh violence in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel threatened to block the UN fact-finding mission to the Jenin camp, where Palestinians say a massacre took place.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana held talks with Yasser Arafat in his besieged Ramallah headquarters after Israel reversed its earlier refusal to allow such a meeting.
Solana's spokeswoman said after the 90-minute session they discussed the "humanitarian situation" of Palestinians and the three-week-old standoff at Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity.
Israel has kept tanks round Arafat's compound since launching a rolling reoccupation of West Bank cities on March 29 after suicide bombings killed scores of Israelis. Troops have withdrawn from most cities but still encircle them.
As anger at Israel's policies crackled across the Arab world, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said "state terrorism" by Israel to crush what he called legitimate Palestinian resistance would fuel an appetite for revenge.
But Mubarak said his country, one of only two Arab states to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state, would stick to a path of moderation and caution in dealing with its neighbor.
The scale of destruction at the Jenin refugee camp has triggered an international outcry.
Israel told the UN overnight it had changed its mind and would not admit the fact-finding team to Jenin unless it included military and counter-terrorism experts.
Palestinians said Israel's objections to a mission it had originally agreed to on Friday showed it had something to hide.
RSS