Israeli occupation troops and tanks raided a Palestinian-ruled town in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing a local man during clashes and razing the family homes of three resistance activists before leaving, witnesses said. The incursion on Beit Lahiya came hours after Palestinian witnesses said occupation troops killed a teenager on the nearby border with Israel on Saturday and ended a week in which the Jewish state was jarred by attacks on its people at home and abroad.

Israeli occupation army sources confirmed the operation took place in Beit Lahiya, which residents said was encircled by some 30 armored vehicles under cover of darkness and cut off from Gaza City, the bustling conurbation just seven km (three miles) away.

Resistance men crouched in graffiti-covered alleyways, bobbing up to fire at the Israeli occupation forces during the three-hour confrontation. Crowds of unarmed men cheered them on from a safe distance.

Israel has launched frequent incursions into the occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank during a two-year-old Palestinian uprising for independence.

In the West Bank, Israeli occupation forces seized a leader of a group linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and behind an attack on an Israeli polling booth that killed six people.

The arrest of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades commander Majid al-Masri near Nablus followed a renewed pledge by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to hunt down those who target Israelis.

The attack by the Brigades, on the polling station in the northern Israeli town of Beit Shean was on Thursday, hours after bomb and missile attacks in Kenya left three Israeli tourists and 10 Kenyans dead.

FIGHTERS RALLIED BY MOSQUE LOUDSPEAKERS

As Israeli tanks entered Beit Lahiya near midnight on Saturday, calls from mosque loudspeakers rallied local resistance men to come out and fight, Palestinian witnesses said.

But the Israeli armor, backed by three helicopter gunships overhead, prevailed and the town was soon paralyzed. Hospital officials said a 32-year-old man was dead in a neighborhood which had seen fighting and 11 other locals were wounded.

After occupation troops took over several tall buildings and set up sniper positions, occupation army engineers blew up the family homes of relatives of three Palestinian resistance activists who had carried out resistance attacks.

Israeli occupation army sources claim such demolitions can deter activists from attacking, as they know their kin will suffer.

But one of the buildings razed on Sunday was a three-story apartment complex, home to several families. Dazed residents gazed at the rubble, most barefoot in the dust, some sobbing.

DIPLOMATIC FRONT

On the diplomatic front, Israel faced a new row with the United Nations over a demand that Israeli occupation troops be punished for killing a U.N. worker during a clash with Palestinian resistance men last week.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Saturday that a probe into British aid worker Iain Hook's killing in the West Bank city of Jenin was likely to end within the next few days. "Based on the conclusions of the inquiry, the prime minister will begin working on a reply" to the United Nations, he said.

Israel has said a preliminary inquiry showed Hook was killed by mistake, when occupation troops took aim at resistance men shooting from inside the compound of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). U.N. officials said there were no resistance men inside the building.

PHOTO CAPTION

A Palestinian youth chants anti-Israeli slogans as he carries the body of Salem Shahwan, who was killed after he raided the internationally illegal Gush Kitef Jewish settlement wounding two Israelis and two foreign workers, during his funeral in the Khan Younis refugee camp south of Gaza Strip) November 30, 2002. (Ahmed Jadallah/Reuter