HIGHLIGHTS: 4 Palestinians Killed Including a 7-year Old Boy ||Palestinian Resistance Man Attacks a Gaza Settlement|| Egypt & Russia Discuss Middle East Conference||Hamas Spiritual Leader Says Resistance Bombings Against Israeli Targets Will Continue||STORY: Israeli occupation troops Friday swept through Jenin, its neighbouring refugee camp and other Palestinian towns killing 4 people including a 7-year old boy and prompting President Arafat to link reforms to Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian-ruled territory.(Read photo caption)

Israeli occupation forces pushed into the battle-scarred Jenin refugee camp Friday, returning to the scene of the fiercest fighting in Israel's recent West Bank offensive, and a second camp near Nablus.

The occupation army withdrew from Jenin city in the late afternoon, after pulling out of the camp in the morning. However, Israeli units are still in positions outside the camp.

Palestinian sources said Israeli troops shot dead a 16-year-old boy in the area. According to Palestinian hospital and security sources two Palestinians were wounded by tank shells in the operation.

An Israeli occupation army source also said 40 suspected militants were arrested in the area

Israeli occupation troop carriers also rolled into the Askar refugee camp near Nablus in a brief raid during which a seven-year-old Palestinian boy was killed by Israeli gunfire on his way to Friday Muslim prayers with his father.

An Israeli Arab woman was killed in a shooting near the West Bank city of Tulkarm.

ATTACK ON ISRAELI SETTLEMENT

An armed Palestinian meanwhile infiltrated a Jewish settlement late on Friday, wounding one settler before being shot dead.
Israeli army and police said the Palestinian infiltrator entered the Beit El settlement near the Palestinian-ruled city of Ramallah, wounding the settlement's security officer who then shot the attacker dead.

Settlers have been a frequent target of Palestinian militants in their 19-month-old uprising against occupation in a bid to drive them off lands the Palestinians seek for a state.

HAMS SPIRITUAL LEADER SAYS RESISTANCE BOMBINGS WILL CONTINUE

Hamas Leader, Ahmad Yassin meanwhile said bombing attacks against Israeli targets will continue. No one should expect these attacks to stop, he added, as long as the enemy goes on killing Palestinian civilians teenagers and 7-year olds almost everyday and everywhere.

In a newspaper interview published in Kuwait recently, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, said the group did not feel bound by peace initiatives.

"We have in the past stopped martyrdom operations against the enemy," he said. But Israelis "did not stop their killing of our people, our leaders and officials," he said, adding, "That is why we are no longer obligated by our previous initiative."

ARAFAT LINKS ELECTIONS TO ISRAELI PULL OUT

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat linked the holding of new Palestinian elections with an Israeli withdrawal from occupied lands in a move that could delay a sought-after program for government reform.

It was not immediately clear whether he was referring to a complete end to Israel's decades-old occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Arafat raised the possibility of new elections -- last held in 1996 -- earlier this week along with reforms and Palestinian lawmakers said they should take place by early 2003.

Palestinian cabinet minister Nabil Shaath later told Reuters "the president meant (no elections) until Israel pulls out its occupation forces to where they had been before September 29, 2000" -- the date the current uprising erupted.

MUTED RESPONSE

Arafat's condition met with a muted response from some Palestinians who have urged new elections and reforms of the Palestinian Authority.

Israel has made an overhaul of Palestinian institutions a precondition for returning to peace talks.

EGYPT & RUSSIA DISCUSS MIDDLE EAST CONFERENCE

In Moscow, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said today Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had to be given the chance to participate in a Middle East peace conference proposed earlier this month.

Maher was speaking during a trip to Russia. Sharon has ruled out anything other than an interim peace deal with a new Palestinian leadership. This week, he ruled out talks with the Palestinians unless they reformed what he called Arafat's "corrupt terror regime". Maher said Israel had no right to vet participants.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said the international conference should seek to build on, and not rewrite, agreements reached in Oslo and Madrid in the 1990s. Russia is a co-sponsor of the Middle East peace process with the United States, but its influence -- notably with its Arab allies -- has waned since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

PHOTO CAPTION

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat attends Friday prayers at his compound in the West Bank City of Ramallah May 17, 2002. Arafat said there could be no free Palestinian elections until Israeli military occupation ended in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. (Osama Silwadi/Reute