Israeli Raids in West Bank Leave 7 Dead

In what Israel described as an intensive manhunt for Palestinian militants, its troops raided homes, marketplaces and a hospital across the West Bank on Thursday, killing at least seven Palestinians, including two men who it said were local leaders of the radical groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Palestinians said at least two of the dead were bystanders -- a young policeman directing traffic in a square, and a teenager with schoolbooks who walked into a clash between soldiers and Palestinian stone-throwers.

In addition, the bodies of two other Palestinians, both men, were found early Thursday after what Israel said had been an overnight attempt to infiltrate Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The toll made it one of the deadliest 24-hour periods in weeks.

The wide-ranging Israeli campaign to seize or kill wanted Palestinians drew vows of vengeance from Palestinian militant groups, which haven’t staged a major attack inside Israel in four weeks.

The latest confrontations also came against the backdrop of Israel’s national election campaign, with balloting only a little more than a month away, and at a time when the Bush administration has made it plain that it hopes Israel won’t take actions likely to inflame passions in the Arab world in the run-up to a possible war with Iraq.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his right-wing Likud Party say that regardless of external circumstances, Palestinian attacks will be met with an unrelenting show of force. “We intend to stop terror wherever we find it,” Raanan Gissin, a Sharon aide, said when asked about Thursday’s actions by the army.

Sharon’s opponent, Amram Mitzna of the left-leaning Labor Party, advocates taking steps to promote a climate in which peace talks could be restarted, including a unilateral pullout of troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip.

On the ground, however, there was little sign that the bitter stalemate could be broken any time soon.

In the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Israeli troops used tear gas and stun grenades to enforce a tight military curfew, driving Palestinians off the streets and back into their homes. The soldiers had pulled back from the center of town Tuesday to allow for Christmas festivities by local people and the thin smattering of foreign pilgrims and tourists who had made their way to the town, where tradition says Jesus was born, to mark the holiday.

By nightfall, the rain-soaked cobblestone streets were silent and empty except for the occasional Israeli military patrol.

The army called the day’s operations, carried out in half a dozen West Bank cities and towns, part of a continuing drive to arrest Palestinian militants before they have the chance to carry out suicide bombings or other attacks against Israelis.

It said its troops were acting on intelligence pointing to a specific threat posed by the men they swooped down to arrest. Palestinians, however, said that in several cases, the wanted men were killed without an opportunity to surrender.

In addition to the deaths, five Israeli soldiers and about 20 Palestinians were wounded in the various clashes in the cities of Ramallah, Tulkarm and Nablus and the village of Kabatiya. In what has become a pattern in recent months, many of the daylight raids took place in crowded urban areas, creating panic among ordinary Palestinians.

“I was tear-gassed twice,” said Dina Jibril, a Palestinian secretary who lives in the village of Beitunia, outside Ramallah. She was on her way home from work Thursday afternoon when troops and armored vehicles arrived in what the army said was hot pursuit of fugitive militants.

In one raid, soldiers entered the compound of Ramallah’s main hospital, and a gunfight ensued. Palestinians said a wanted man named Samir Shamali, who lived on the edge of town, was shot and killed.

Another exchange of fire took place in one of Ramallah’s busiest plazas, a downtown traffic circle called Manara Square, where Israeli troops stopped a car carrying two wanted Hamas activists. One of them was killed when the gunfight broke out, the army said.

The commotion drew a crowd of stone-throwers, and troops fired toward them, killing a traffic policeman, according to Palestinian witnesses. The army said it recovered cash and weapons in the Hamas men’s car.

Israel also said it killed a senior local leader of Islamic Jihad in Kabatiya, outside Jenin. Palestinian witnesses said soldiers surrounded the house of Hamza abu Roub and demanded that he surrender. Abu Roub sent out his wife and children but then opened fire, wounding four soldiers, the army said.

He was killed in a massive barrage of return fire. Afterward, soldiers blew up his home -- a tactic increasingly used in recent months. Israel considers it a deterrent to militants; Palestinians and human rights groups say it punishes families that are often innocent of complicity.

Islamic Jihad, in a statement issued in the Gaza Strip, promised to “avenge this crime.”

Also tracked to his home and killed by troops was Jamal Nader Yahiyeh, described by Israel as a leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in Tulkarm.

Another Palestinian gunman was reported killed in Nablus, in an exchange of gunfire that spilled over into the streets of the casbah, or old city. Hospital officials said one passerby was killed and at least a dozen people were injured.

Witnesses said an 18-year-old Palestinian who was not involved in the confrontation was shot and killed when he walked into the line of fire.