Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon’s right-wing Likud party has voted to reject the creation of a Palestinian state - a major defeat for Sharon.

Israeli troops and Palestinians renewed fierce battles in two West Bank cities today, with gunmen putting up stiff resistance to Israeli forces in the crowded Jenin refugee camp and in the winding alleyways of Nablus’ Old City.

Israeli police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at stone-throwing Palestinians in Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque compound today, and briefly sealed off the adjacent Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest shrine, to protect Jewish worshippers.