Israel Sweeps Into West Bank Areas After Bombing
``I personally, and the Palestinian Authority, are completely against it (the attacks),'' Arafat told reporters outside his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

He cautioned that such attacks could result in Israeli forces reoccupying Palestinian-ruled land in the West Bank under a new policy of responding to suicide bombings by retaking and holding such territory.

His written statement was read out by an announcer on Voice of Palestine radio and published in newspapers. It referred to the ``necessity to completely stop these attacks...to preserve the high national interest.''

Arafat has made such appeals before, including when he went on television to do so under intense international pressure last December, but the suicide bombings have not ceased.

Militant groups at the forefront of a nearly 21-month-old uprising against Israeli occupation spurned Arafat's plea, saying attacks would go on as long as Israel was killing Palestinian civilians.

``Why should Israel be allowed to strike us in Nablus and Qalqilya (in the West Bank) while we are denied the right to strike them in Tel Aviv and Haifa?'' said senior Hamas official Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi.

Israel says it does not target Palestinian civilians but acknowledges they have sometimes been caught up in clashes between troops and militants hunkered down in populated areas.

Troops entered the West Bank city of Bethlehem, the adjacent Deheisheh refugee camp, and the village of Betounia outside Ramallah early on Thursday, and Tulkarm later in the day.

They have been in the northern West Bank cities of Jenin and Qalqiliya since Tuesday night.

Hours after Wednesday's suicide bombing in the French Hill area, which is built on land Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war, Israeli helicopters fired missiles at metal foundries in the Gaza Strip, wounding four people.

The army said they were factories used to make weapons.

Israeli security sources said two soldiers were killed and four hurt when they were attacked as they hunted for a militant in Qalqilya. A soldier returned fire and killed a gunman.

At least 1,403 Palestinians and 540 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian revolt began in September 2000.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html