Four dead in refugee camp attack

Four Palestinians were killed today when Israeli tanks, accompanied by attack helicopters, invaded a refugee camp near the Gaza-Egypt border.

Earlier, Israeli troops rounded up hundreds of men in a sweep of the West Bank town of Tulkarem and demolished the home of a jailed Palestinian accused in a string of attacks.

In Gaza, residents said about 25 tanks and several bulldozers entered the refugee camp next to the town of Rafah. Palestinian gunmen shot at the soldiers, and an Apache helicopter fired back, killing a Palestinian. Three others died in exchanges of fire, and seven were wounded in the violence, doctors said.

The Israeli military would say only that an operation was in progress. Israel Radio reported that four Israeli soldiers were wounded when a bomb went off under a tank.

The area is the scene of daily clashes between armed Palestinians and Israeli soldiers, and Israel often sends in bulldozers to destroy buildings they claim are used by gunmen for cover.

In Nablus, Israeli troops shot and killed a leader of the militant Hamas group during a raid on his hide-out early today, the army said.

Khaled Rayyan, 28, was hiding in a relative’s house with his wife and child when soldiers broke down the door, said his wife, Salam Rayyan. Rayyan was killed when he tried to attack the troops with a pistol, his wife said.

The arrested men in Tulkarem were held in a barbed wire enclosure for several hours and then all but seven were released. Another four suspected militants, including a Hamas member accused of planning shooting attacks, were arrested elsewhere in the West Bank.

The military said that during the Tulkarem operation troops caught a wanted militant trying to slip out of the town’s refugee camp disguised in women’s clothing.

The military’s operations came as Mahmoud Abbas, the recently named Palestinian prime minister, met with political leaders in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday to discuss the formation of his new Cabinet, expected later this month.

Abbas, who is widely known as Abu Mazen, also met in recent days with leaders of the Hamas militant group, based in Gaza. Abbas has been trying to persuade Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad to end, at least for a period, attacks against Israelis.