Seven die in Israeli tanks and helicopter attack

Israeli troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships entered the West Bank town of Jenin and two nearby Palestinian villages today.

Seven Palestinians, including three suspected Islamic militants and an 11-year-old girl, were killed by Israeli fire, Palestinian security officials said.

Under heavy Palestinian fire, troops demolished three buildings Israel said served as centres for preparing terror attacks a police stations and two homes of Islamic militants before withdrawing at daybreak.

In a separate incident, a Palestinian man was killed and three people wounded when Israeli troops fired toward a Palestinian taxi in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security officials said.

The incursions into Jenin and the villages of Tamoun and Arrabeh just to the south followed a day of violence in which three other Palestinians were killed, two in exchanges of gunfire in Jenin and the other in the Gaza Strip.

In another development, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was forced to postpone his departure for Damascus, for a long-awaited meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad .

Arafat was to have left last night. However, Israel closed its airspace and borders in response to the wave of terror attacks on New York and Washington, meaning Arafat could not use Gaza International Airport or leave overland to Egypt.