Israeli Troops

JERUSALEM -- Israeli troops shot and killed three Palestinian militants during a raid yesterday in the West Bank town of Jenin and also entered Nablus for the second time this week. In Jenin, undercover Israeli forces moved to arrest two Islamic Jihad members allegedly involved in a foiled suicide bombing in Tel Aviv last week, Israeli officials said. The troops shot back after being fired upon, killing the suspects and a man with them, officials said. The dead were identified as Ashraf Saadi, 29, suspected of involvement in numerous shootings and bombings, and Mohammed Abu Naasah, 34, an Islamic Jihad commander in the Jenin refugee camp.

Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinians face a Catch-22. As the Sun's editorial, "Mr. Abbas' mission" (Feb. 13) points out, a unity government between Mr. Abbas' Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza is a necessary precondition to negotiate a two state solution. Unfortunately, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserts that Mr. Abbas can have peace with Israel or unity with Hamas, but not both. The Catch-22 is that Israel used the split in territorial control between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas as an excuse to not negotiate.

JERUSALEM - Israeli troops stepped up attacks on Hamas fighters in the outskirts of Gaza City yesterday, as the death toll of Palestinians in recent fighting surpassed 900 and Hamas militants fired a new volley of rockets into southern Israel. On the 17th day since Israel launched its incursion into the Gaza Strip, the conflict appeared to be reaching a crucial threshold that could result in escalated combat or a negotiated resolution. In a televised statement from a hide-out presumed to be in Gaza, a top leader of the battered Hamas regime mixed defiance with language suggesting openness to diplomacy.

JERUSALEM -The Israeli military said yesterday that it had opened an investigation into possible troop misconduct during the Gaza war after the head of a school for future recruits relayed stories of civilian killings and property destruction told by graduates during a recent gathering. The accounts were published in the Israeli newspapers Haaretz and Maariv yesterday. Haaretz ran excerpts of statements by two squad commanders who told of Palestinian civilians being shot even though they did not appear to pose a threat to Israeli troops.

JERUSALEM -- Israeli troops have been given new orders to act firmly, even with force, against Jewish settlers who have been attacking Palestinians on the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, the army said yesterday."

JERUSALEM - Israeli troops swooped down on a West Bank hide-out early yesterday and shot to death a senior commander of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad and one of his top aides, according to military spokesmen and Palestinian officials. The killing of Luai Saadi, a fugitive blamed by Israeli authorities for orchestrating attacks that killed 12 Israelis this year, drew threats of vengeance from Islamic Jihad. As Israel ushered in the Jewish holiday of Simhat Torah, the Israeli military stepped up its state of readiness and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz warned that any strike by Islamic Jihad would be met with a harsh response.

JABALIYA REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip -- From yesterday's earliest light, they looked to salvage a schoolbook here, a cooking pan there, a dust-choked quilt or a shattered picture frame. Hours after Friday night's pullback of Israeli troops from a densely populated swath of the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinians who had fled the fighting 17 days earlier ventured back to their homes -- or in some cases, what had been their homes. Human rights groups said about 80 houses had been destroyed during fighting in and near the Jabaliya refugee camp, a sprawling slum of more than 100,000 people.

JERUSALEM -- Israeli troops and armor backed by helicopters crossed into the Gaza Strip yesterday and clashed with Palestinian militants, killing 11, in the most recent in a series of raids into the coastal territory since it was taken over by Hamas. An Israeli army spokeswoman said troops advanced about a half-mile into central Gaza, near the Maghazi and Bureij refugee camps, to look for rocket squads and tunnels used by militants. Hamas gunmen planted explosives and fired rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

JERUSALEM - Israeli troops fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets yesterday to drive away several hundred Palestinians, Israelis and foreign activists who were cutting through part of Israel's security fence in the northern West Bank. The fence, a sensitive subject between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, is expected to be on the agenda today when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel meets President Bush at the White House. Israel says the fence is essential to prevent Palestinian attacks, while the president has been critical of the fence's route, which juts into the West Bank.

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Israeli troops staged a rare incursion into this city yesterday, bulldozing cars and vegetable stands near the central square as they engaged gunmen and stone-throwing residents in a chaotic two-hour battle that left four Palestinians dead. The raid, aimed at rescuing a team of undercover Israeli agents, was a diplomatic embarrassment for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as he headed to Egypt for talks with President Hosni Mubarak on how to revive peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

JERUSALEM - Israeli troops stepped up attacks on Hamas fighters in the outskirts of Gaza City yesterday, as the death toll of Palestinians in recent fighting surpassed 900 and Hamas militants fired a new volley of rockets into southern Israel. On the 17th day since Israel launched its incursion into the Gaza Strip, the conflict appeared to be reaching a crucial threshold that could result in escalated combat or a negotiated resolution. In a televised statement from a hide-out presumed to be in Gaza, a top leader of the battered Hamas regime mixed defiance with language suggesting openness to diplomacy.

JERUSALEM - Israeli troops and tanks thrust into the Gaza Strip's densely populated capital from three directions yesterday, drawing Hamas fighters into fierce combat in an offensive expanded by a fresh deployment of army reservists. High-rise apartments shook, and smaller, targeted buildings crumbled in Gaza City under the force of Israeli artillery shelling and missiles fired from helicopters. Plumes of black smoke rose as Hamas fighters answered with mortars, automatic rifles and grenades.

JERUSALEM - Israeli troops and tanks invaded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip late yesterday after eight days of punishing airstrikes failed to halt the militant Palestinian group's rocket fire into Israel. Gunbattles could be heard from Gaza City as artillery rounds lighted the night sky. Columns of tanks and infantry, backed by helicopter gunships, pushed nearly half a mile into the territory from three directions. Israeli officials said that they expected a lengthy battle but that they did not intend to occupy Gaza.

JERUSALEM -- Israeli troops and armor backed by helicopters crossed into the Gaza Strip yesterday and clashed with Palestinian militants, killing 11, in the most recent in a series of raids into the coastal territory since it was taken over by Hamas. An Israeli army spokeswoman said troops advanced about a half-mile into central Gaza, near the Maghazi and Bureij refugee camps, to look for rocket squads and tunnels used by militants. Hamas gunmen planted explosives and fired rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

JERUSALEM -- Israeli soldiers swept into the Gaza Strip yesterday, killing 13 Palestinians in the heaviest fighting since Hamas seized control of the territory early this month, the Israeli military said. In raids involving helicopters and ground forces, the troops attacked around Gaza City and near the southern town of Khan Yunis. The actions, which included searches for tunnels and explosives, were a further sign that Israel intends to isolate and weaken the militant Hamas movement while negotiating with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his more moderate Fatah party.

JERUSALEM -- At least four Palestinian gunmen using an armored vehicle and grenade launchers broke through Israel's border fence from Gaza yesterday and fought a gunbattle with Israeli soldiers, while Israeli troops entered Gaza near the southern town of Rafah to search for weapons and tunnels used to smuggle arms and explosives from Egypt. One of the Palestinian gunmen was shot dead after the armored vehicle, labeled "TV," crashed through the border fence at the old Kissufim crossing, near Deir el Balah, according to the Israeli army.

BETHLEHEM -- The last Israeli soldier riding the last truck out of Bethlehem fended off a surging crowd and raised his arms in farewell as the Israeli army withdrew last night.Within minutes, fireworks painted the sky and a jubilant river of Palestinians flowed through Manger Square to tear down the fence at the Israeli police station.Bethlehem erupted with joy. Israel's departure after 28 years of occupation showed how little it had won the hearts or minds of the Palestinians.Even those who have misgivings about the future of the city and the new Palestinian Authority that will govern it surged into the center of the city to celebrate as church bells pealed.

NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza Strip - Thousands of defiant Jewish settlers and their supporters faced off at dawn today with Israeli troops who poured in to evict them from the Gaza Strip in accordance with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's landmark decision to hand over the territory to the Palestinians. More than 100 Israeli military vehicles rumbled toward the settlements before dawn. But protesters barred the way to many communities, including the largest, Neve Dekalim, where troops and protesters had clashed the day before.

JERUSALEM -- Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, and Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, will meet next week, their offices said yesterday, in a continuation of a Washington-sponsored dialogue that will inevitably focus on another round of Israeli-Palestinian warfare. In March, they promised Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that they would meet every two weeks to discuss "a political horizon" for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement. They had met only once, on April 15, before a fierce new round of intra-Palestinian fighting in the Gaza Strip segued into a new barrage of rockets from Gaza into Israel, joined this time by Hamas, which has drawn the Israeli military into a new round of airstrikes.

JERUSALEM -- Israeli troops shot and killed three Palestinian militants during a raid yesterday in the West Bank town of Jenin and also entered Nablus for the second time this week. In Jenin, undercover Israeli forces moved to arrest two Islamic Jihad members allegedly involved in a foiled suicide bombing in Tel Aviv last week, Israeli officials said. The troops shot back after being fired upon, killing the suspects and a man with them, officials said. The dead were identified as Ashraf Saadi, 29, suspected of involvement in numerous shootings and bombings, and Mohammed Abu Naasah, 34, an Islamic Jihad commander in the Jenin refugee camp.