Fighting spread yesterday through the alleys of densely populated West Bank refugee camps, where Palestinian militants reportedly were handing out explosives-packed belts to residents willing to strap them on and challenge Israeli soldiers.
Israeli forces continued to surround Balata refugee camp in Nablus, and, at a camp in Jenin, another northern West Bank city, residents said Israeli helicopter gunships targeting anything that moved were keeping people inside.
Outside the siege area, Palestinian militants also attacked a heavily fortified Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip early yesterday with guns and grenades, according to Israeli army officials.
A soldier was killed and four were injured, they said. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility and said two of its militants were killed.
The fighting flared after 25 Palestinians, including six Islamic militants, died on Friday. It was one of the bloodiest days of a more than one-week-old Israeli offensive launched after the deadliest wave of Palestinian suicide bombings ever.
The renewed assaults have undermined already faint hopes for a swift end to fighting raised by US President George W. Bush's demand for a withdrawal and Friday's meeting between US envoy Anthony Zinni and besieged Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Israel began moving into West Bank cities eight days ago, after a suicide bombing killed 26 people in the city of Netanya at the start of the Passover holiday. Israeli forces have reoccupied six major West Bank cities and towns since beginning the campaign to chase down militants blamed for terror attacks inside Israel.
With international opposition to the Israeli incursions growing, the US has intensified its regional peacemaking efforts. Bush, who is dispatching Secretary of State Colin Powell to the region today, was preparing for a weekend meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the president's Texas ranch to search for a formula for peace.
Palestinian Cabinet secretary Ahmed Abdel Rahman said the Palestinians will only meet with Powell if he meets with Arafat, who remains confined by Israeli forces to a few rooms of his Ramallah headquarters.
"Arafat is the only address," Abdel Rahman said yesterday, a day after Zinni became the first foreign official to meet with Arafat since Israeli forces moved on the compound March 29. Palestinians last month were angered by visiting US Vice President Dick Cheney's refusal to meet with Arafat.
Abdel Rahman said Palestinian Authority officials outside the besieged compound had lost all contact with Arafat since Friday night. He accused Israel of interfering with mobile telephone signals and cutting the electricity. The Israeli army confirmed power went out to the compound, but said Israeli forces didn't cut it.
In Bethlehem, where a standoff between Israeli forces and scores of Palestinian gunmen holed up in the Church of the Nativity was in its fifth day, soldiers searched private homes yesterday. Witnesses said at least 10 men were blindfolded, cuffed and led away in armored personnel carriers.
Further north in Jenin, a local Hamas leader said Palestinian militant factions had banded together and given explosives belts to residents of the camp under siege.
"Nobody works as Fatah or Hamas, everybody works together," said Jamal Abu al-Haija. "All the factions have distributed explosive belts and hand grenades to the people of the camp to defend themselves."
Abu al-Haija said a Palestinian woman, Ilham Dosuki, blew herself up early yesterday when soldiers approached the door to her home in the camp, also killing or injuring some of the soldiers. Separately, he said Israeli tank fire killed three Palestinian policemen overnight in a camp alley.
Camp residents, including Abu al-Haija, were confined to their homes by the fighting outside and received information by keeping in touch on mobile telephones. Reports from inside the camps couldn't be verified.
The Israeli military didn't immediately comment on the report about Dosuki blowing herself up, but reported a somewhat similar situation in the area. The army said Israeli troops fired on a Palestinian man early yesterday in Jenin who had explosives strapped to his body, causing a blast that killed only the man.
On Friday, two Israeli soldiers died in Jenin-area fighting and another was seriously wounded, according to the army.
Al-Haija said Israeli forces were surrounding the camp from all sides. With top floors of homes hit hard by missile and tank fire, he said people were confined to lower levels.
Mohammed Abu Ghali, director of a Jenin hospital, said Israeli tanks were not allowing ambulances to evacuate the dead and wounded from the camp.
The Israeli military also said four Palestinians were shot dead early yesterday at the Askar refugee camp near Nablus as they placed explosives along a road to the camp.
Palestinian militants, meanwhile, reported that hours earlier a 22-year-old militant identified as Jamil Arboudi of Nablus blew himself up after charging into a Nablus field occupied by Israeli soldiers. They claimed four Israelis were injured or killed; the Israeli army denied any such attack occurred.
Smoke rose yesterday from the old city of Nablus and sporadic heavy machine-gun fire from Israeli helicopters could be heard. Battles Friday involving Israeli tanks and helicopter gunships against Palestinian gunmen destroyed old city shops and damaged houses in the Balata camp.
In the Gaza Strip, the militant Islamic Jihad group said two of its militants carried out the attack on Rafiah Yam settlement. Israeli officials handed their bodies over to Palestinian authorities.
At Beach refugee camp in Gaza City, residents found the body of a Palestinian identified as Issam Guhra, 37. Guhra, who'd been shot dead, had been arrested by Palestinian police and released several times on accusations of collaborating with Israel. There was no claim of responsibility for his death; police declined comment.
It was not clear whether Israel planned a larger push into Gaza. While most of the top leaders of the Hamas militant group live in the narrow, crowded strip of 1.3 million, the area is effectively surrounded by a fence and it has not been the source of suicide bombers in the current conflict.
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