Renewing a truce mission, a US mediator met with Yasser Arafat at the Palestinian leader's besieged headquarters yesterday, as Israel pressed on with its offensive against Palestinian militants despite US demands that troops halt incursions and withdraw from West Bank cities.
Israeli tanks entered new Palestinian territory -- Tubas, a town of 20,000 in the West Bank -- and attack helicopters battled hundreds of gunmen in the city of Nablus and nearby refugee camps. At least 12 Palestinians, including several gunmen and a 14-year-old girl, were killed yesterday. The Israeli military also removed the bodies of six Palestinians from Bethlehem, but it was not clear whether these were new casualties.
Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said yesterday that "we are continuing the operation we started."
Israeli commentators said Israel believed it had a few more days -- at least until the arrival of US Secretary of State Colin Powell in the region next week -- to keep going with the operation.
In Bethlehem, a standoff between Israeli forces and about 240 gunmen holed up in the Church of the Nativity entered a fourth day. Four of about 60 priests trapped in the church came out yesterday and left Bethlehem under Israeli escort, the military said.
Giacomo Bini, a senior Roman Catholic official in Rome, said both Israel and the Palestinian gunmen have caused damage to the shrine, one of Christianity's holiest.
In the Gaza Strip, some 10,000 supporters of the Islamic militant Hamas group rallied in the Jebaliya refugee camp. Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas founder, said the group would not stop attacks on Israelis, and accused the US of trying to weaken the Palestinians' resolve by renewing the truce effort.
US envoy Anthony Zinni met for 90 minutes yesterday with Arafat, becoming the first senior official in eight days to meet with the Palestinian leader, who has been confined to a few rooms in his West Bank headquarters since last week.
Arafat adviser Nabil Abu Rdeneh said there would be more meetings between Palestinian and US officials later in the day.
The heaviest fighting yesterday was reported in the West Bank town of Nablus, the adjacent refugee camp of Balata and the refugee camp of Jenin to the north.
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