Front Lines
The sense of movement at week's end contrasted with the frustrations that preceded it. Last weekend, Palestinians dressed as Israeli soldiers killed four people — including a 5-year-old girl — in a settlement near Hebron. Israel raided Hebron on Monday, killing at least 8 and saying it arrested 150 terrorist suspects and found a car bomb and two suitcases of explosives. On Wednesday, in the Gaza Strip Israeli troops opened fire in a residential area after, according to Israel, Palestinian militants tried to set off explosives. Three Palestinians, including a 2-year-old girl, were killed.

And then Israeli soldiers returned to Nablus, one of the West Bank's largest cities — and, after heavy fighting last month that left 75 Palestinians dead, one of its most devastated. Israel retreated after saying it had seized bombs and interrupted planned attacks.

The U.N. fact-finding mission intended to investigate Palestinian claims of an Israeli massacre in the West Bank town of Jenin was disbanded after the U.S. dropped its support for the inquiry in the face of Israel's continued resistance to the composition of the investigative team, the scope of its investigation and the possibility that it could be used to charge Israeli commanders and soldiers with war crimes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/05/weekinreview/05WARS.html