BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Israeli occupation troops killed four Palestinians during an advance on two West Bank cities on Saturday, the latest raids in the most comprehensive offensive against Palestinian areas in a year-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.A Palestinian woman was also shot dead in the West Bank town of Beit Jala, the site of a previous Israeli raid this week.
Stoking fears that violence is spinning out of control since the assassination of an Israeli cabinet minister on Wednesday, Israeli occupation troops battled Palestinian Resistance men as the occupation army's armored vehicles pushed several hundred meters (yards) into the West Bank cities of Tulkarm and Qalqilya.
Palestinian security sources said Israeli occupation soldiers had occupied several houses in both cities and destroyed five Palestinian security posts in Qalqilya.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, opposed to the Oslo peace accords with Israel, said it killed Zeevi in response to Israel's assassination of leader Abu Ali Mustafa in August.
The fighting flies in the face of U.S. efforts to restore calm in the Middle East which it views as vital to maintaining Arab support for its war against terrorism -- launched after attacks against it on September 11, for which Washington says Afghan-based Osama bin Laden is the prime suspect.
Two Palestinian police were killed trying to fight off the Tulkarm incursion, Palestinian medical sources said.
In Qalqilya, a Palestinian policeman and a man identified as a member of the militant Islamic group Hamas were killed in the advance, during which Israeli occupation troops also arrested five other Hamas members and two Palestinian security men.
The toll since Zeevi's assassination, is 17 Palestinians and one Israeli killed, and dozens wounded.
US CRITICIZES INCURSIONS:
The latest incursions followed similar raids into Palestinian-ruled Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jenin and Beit Jala in the West Bank in a new upsurge in bloodshed after Palestinian leftist Resistance men killed ultranationalist tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi.
In a sharp rebuke, the US State Department said on Friday that Israel's forays into Palestinian areas were "not helpful, complicate the situation and should be halted".
The US called on Israel and the Palestinians to "avoid steps that inflame the situation and make more difficult measures to achieve calm".
Israeli Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit said Israel had no intention of holding on to Palestinian-controlled territory but had to "stop Palestinian attacks against Israel".
PHOTO CAPTION:
Israeli tanks and troops entered the outskirts of the Palestinian-ruled city of Bethlehem on October 19, 2001 after a surge in fighting following the assassination of a far-right Israeli cabinet minister. (BBC Graphic)