Tanks and troops killed three Palestinians in raids on West Bank villages on Wednesday as Israel tried to impose conditions on a UN mission due to investigate events at the devastated Jenin refugee camp.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell urged Israel to cooperate with a UN fact-finding team into events in the Jenin refugee camp, the scene of fierce fighting between troops and Palestinian gunmen in a three-week-old West Bank offensive.
Israel told the United Nations it had changed its mind and would not admit the fact-finding team to the Jenin refugee camp unless it included military and counter-terrorism experts.
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, meanwhile, said he was shocked at conditions in Yasser Arafat's besieged Ramallah compound after meeting the Palestinian leader for 90 minutes.
"I was very, very shocked to see the situation in which Arafat finds himself. I do not think that this leads to a resolution of any problems," Solana told reporters after meeting Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in Tel Aviv.
The UN Security Council called another emergency meeting on the Middle East crisis on Wednesday at the request of Arab nations, upset over Israel's continued siege of Arafat's headquarters.
In Bethlehem, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators ended a second day of talks without agreement on the fate of dozens of wanted Palestinian gunmen holed up in the Nativity church along with about 200 clerics, church workers and Palestinian police.
Palestinian negotiator Salah Taamari said the talks concentrated on evacuating two Palestinians and an Israeli soldier wounded in a gun battle that erupted as the talks were about to begin. One of the Palestinians later died.
The gunmen later agreed to release 10 to 15 youths from the besieged shrine and evacuate two corpses, the Israeli army said. An army spokesman said the release would take place early on Thursday.
Israel has insisted the wanted men surrender, giving them a choice between trial in Israel or exile. Palestinians want them sent to Gaza to face Palestinian justice.
In Ramallah, Israel has kept a ring of tanks around Arafat's headquarters since launching an offensive in West Bank cities on March 29 after suicide bombings killed scores of Israelis. Troops have withdrawn from most cities but still encircle them.
ANGER SPREADS
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.
Palestinian security sources said Yaqoub al-Sarayrah, a leader of Arafat's Fatah faction, was one of two men killed in an Israeli raid on Bani Naim, near Hebron. They said four people had been wounded and 15 detained.
The army said the two men were killed in a gun battle. It described them as "terrorists" behind attacks in the Hebron area and said it detained seven suspected militants.
Palestinian hospital officials in Jenin said Israeli troops had shot dead 13-year-old Majdi Haliliya and wounded four other villagers in Jaba'a, which lies between Jenin and Nablus.
Witnesses said soldiers fired after coming under a hail of stones as they closed in on a house where about four suspected militants were hiding. The soldiers eventually detained the men. The army had no immediate word on the incident.
In Jenin refugee camp, 10-year-old Assad Faisal Ersan died of wounds sustained when an explosive device blew up on Sunday.
In the Gaza Strip, three Palestinians, at least two of them known militants, were killed in an explosion in a house in Jabalya refugee camp, witnesses said. Police were investigating.
Israeli troops killed three Palestinian boys who tried to carry out a suicide mission on the Jewish settlement of Netzarim on Tuesday night. The 14-year-old classmates left suicide notes showing they knew their venture would end in their deaths.
The army said they carried pipe bombs, an axe and knives.
POWELL SAYS NO SIGN OF MASSACRE
Powell told a Senate committee hearing in Washington that so far he had "seen no evidence that would suggest a massacre took place." But he said it was in everyone's best interests to let the UN committee find out what happened.
Powell said this was preferable to "the coarse speculation that was out there as to what happened, with terms being tossed around like massacre and mass graves, none of which so far seems to be the case."
Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Israel believed the U.N. fact-finding committee had already decided before starting its mission "to entrap Israel so it could be put on trial."
Palestinians said Israel's objections to a mission it had agreed to on Friday showed it had something to hide.
Annan would not be a member of a UN delegation meeting with Israeli officials flying to New York on Thursday to discuss Israel's concerns, UN officials said.
Annan, who sent his fact-finding team to Geneva to prepare for their mission, said that experts might be added to the team although he would not remove anyone now on the mission.
He said the mission, headed by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, would still reach the region by Saturday.
Palestinians say hundreds of civilians may have been killed in the camp, where hundreds of homes were demolished by tank fire and bulldozers during fighting. Israel has said it killed only a few dozen gunmen and lost 23 soldiers in street battles.
At least 1,305 Palestinians and 454 Israelis have been killed during the 18-month-old Palestinian uprising.
(China Daily April 25, 2002)
