HIGHLIGHTS: Settlers Kill a Teenage Girl in Hebron & Occupation Army Kills Villager in Ramallah||Two Top Hamas Activists Arrested Close to Arafat's H.Q. in Ramallah||Resistance Fires Mortar Bomb At Israeli Settlement in Gaza|| STORY: A new spasm of violence seizing the Israeli-occupied West Bank overshadowed Secretary of State Colin Powell's optimism over high-level talks with Palestinian officials next week.

Jewish settlers shot dead a teenage girl in Hebron and an Israeli occupation army patrol killed a villager near Ramallah on Sunday, the latest Palestinian fatalities in 22 months of bloodshed.

This, and an Israeli occupation army swoop which captured two top Hamas men close to the headquarters of Yasser Arafat, brought home the Palestinian leader's weakness in a West Bank largely reoccupied by Israel after a wave of Resistance bombings last month.

Among at least eight West Bank arrests, Israeli occupatintroops captured a leading Hamas militant and his lieutenant from the Islamic Resistance group in Beituniya, abutting Ramallah.

The occupation army said Hussein Abu Kwaik, long on Israel's wanted list, and Freij Rumeidah had been planning attacks on Israelis as part of an uprising for independence which erupted in September 2000 after statehood talks stalled.

In the Gaza Strip -- which, with the West Bank, the Palestinians want for a state -- a Palestinian mortar bomb hit a firetruck at a Jewish settlement on Sunday night, causing a blaze but hurting no one, the army said.

Next week's meeting in Washington will be the most senior contact between U.S. and Palestinian Authority officials since President Bush called last month for Arafat -- whom Israel considers a "terrorist" -- to be sidelined.

"Last week I met with an Israeli delegation. This is part of the process of moving forward to help the Palestinian community transform itself," said Powell, on an Asian tour.

In a so-called conciliatory move, Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced what he calls steps meant to ease the military clampdown on Palestinians.

PHOTO CAPTION

Jewish settlers throw stones at Palestinian homes in the West Bank city of Hebron July 28, 2002. Jewish settlers shot dead a Palestinian girl while attacking homes in the West Bank city of Hebron after the funeral of an Israeli soldier killed in a roadside ambush, Palestinian witnesses said. (Gil Cohen Magen/Reuter