Israeli troops yesterday killed at least five Palestinians - and perhaps as many as 10 - and arrested at least 12. This was during a day-long raid on a West Bank village inside Palestinian-held territory where military officials said last week's assassination of the Israeli Tourism Minister, Mr Rehavam Ze'evi, was planned.
Palestinian leaders put the death toll at 10 or higher, describing the army's actions as "a massacre". They accused troops of preventing medical teams from tending the injured.
Mr Bassam Eid, a human rights official, added that "20 Palestinian civilians" had been injured, "including at least four seriously".
Throughout the day, ambulances and journalists waited on the outskirts of the village, prevented by the army from entering.
Israel's West Bank military commander, Brig-Gen Gershon Yitzhak, citing a death toll of five, claimed all of those killed had opened fire on troops. He said while Palestinian medical teams had been kept away, Israeli medical units had treated the injured.
At least four more Palestinians were killed elsewhere in the West Bank as the army maintained its blockade of six major cities in defiance of US President George W Bush.
At least 30 Palestinians and one Israeli have been killed in the week since Mr Ze'evi's death; many of the Palestinian dead have been civilians.
With Mr Bush now publicly urging Israel to "move their troops as quickly as possible" out of Palestinian-held areas of the West Bank, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is today convening his senior ministers to discuss a withdrawal. Nevertheless, Mr Sharon was still openly resisting the presidential pressure yesterday, deriding the "unseemly local panic" about a crisis in relations with the US, and declaring from the Knesset podium that "when we conclude our mission, we shall withdraw".
As defined by Mr Sharon, the army's "mission" during its week-long presence deep inside Bethlehem, in northern neighbourhoods of Ramallah, and on the outskirts of Jenin, Tulkarm, Nablus and Qalkilya, has included tracking down Mr Ze'evi's killers.
The storming of the village of Beit Rima, inside Palestinian-held territory north-west of Ramallah, fell into that category, Israeli military officials said, adding that they had informed Palestinian officials of the action 30 minutes before the infantry, tanks and helicopters moved in.
Fighting continued from the small hours yesterday and throughout the day. Among those arrested, said Gen Yitzhak, were members of Hamas, the Tanzim militia, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, whose gunmen shot dead Mr Ze'evi.
The general added: "We arrested part of the cell that killed the minister."
However, other Israeli sources acknowledged last night that the gunman who ambushed the minister at his Jerusalem hotel last Wednesday - who they named as Hemdi Korain - was still at large.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian woman stabbed and badly wounded a security guard in the offices of the Israeli Bezeq phone company in East Jerusalem, and a Palestinian was critically wounded when gunmen fired on his car east of Hebron. Israeli officials said they suspected the assailants were Jewish settlers.