Associated Press

Palestinian mourners pray next to the body of Ayman Halaweh draped in Hamas and Palestinian flags during his funeral in the West Bank town of Nablus yesterday. Halaweh was killed when his car exploded Monday and without acknowledging involvement, the Israeli Prime Minister's Office issued a statement saying that Halaweh was at the top of the list of militants Israel had asked the Palestinian Authority to arrest.

Wednesday October 24, 2001

JERUSALEM - In a deepening confrontation yesterday, Israel turned down a blunt U.S. demand to pull its army out of six Palestinian towns in the West Bank.

Near one of the towns, Tulkarem, two Palestinians were killed yesterday by Israeli gunfire, Palestinians said. The Israeli military said its soldiers returned Palestinian fire there.

Israel sent its army into the West Bank towns after the assassination last Wednesday of ultra nationalist Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi. The assassination was claimed by the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian as vengeance for Israel's Aug. 27 killing of its leader.

Israeli officials said that they would not pull out of the towns until Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat turns over Zeevi's assassins and stamps out rogue military groups. But Israel TV reported Tuesday that some troops might be pulled back as a gesture to the United States.

In the last eight months, Israel occasionally has sent its military into West Bank and Gaza areas that were handed over to Palestinian rule in interim peace deals. In all cases, troops pulled out within days. The current thrust is by far the largest.

In its bluntest language yet, the U.S. government told Israel on Monday to withdraw its troops and end the incursions. "No further such incursions should be made," said State Department spokesman Philip Reeker.

U.S. officials have expressed concern that a flare-up in Mideast violence might hamper efforts to keep moderate Arabs in the anti-terrorism coalition against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.

In Gaza, Arafat charged that Israel is ignoring the U.S. demands. "The Israeli position is a very dangerous one," he said.

In Nablus yesterday, thousands joined a funeral procession for Ayman Halaweh, a top bombmaker for the Islamic militant group Hamas, killed in an explosion in his car Monday. Palestinians blamed Israel for the blast and chanted calls for revenge at the funeral.

Israel did not claim responsibility but issued a statement saying Halaweh hadcrafted bombs for attacks that killed 48 people. In the past year, Israel has killed more than 50 Palestinians, including numerous bystanders, in targeted attacks on militants it blamed for plotting attacks on its civilians.

The confrontation with Washington is the most serious diplomatic clash since Ariel Sharon was elected prime minister eight months ago.

The incursions have also exposed cracks in Sharon's broad-based coalition, with moderates uncomfortable with the operation and suspicious that Sharon was pursuing a strategy aimed at bringing down Arafat.

Foreign Minister official Gideon Meir insisted yesterday that Israel would withdraw "immediately after it will clean up the terrorist nests which are deep-rooted there."

Palestinian officials have claimed they had outlawed the PFLP's armed wing and had made numerous arrests, but Meir told The Associated Press that Arafat is not moving against the militants, so Israel must do it instead.

Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer of the moderate Labor Party was less resolute, saying that if Israel receives pledges that the Palestinians would deal with security issues "there is nothing preventing us discussing" a pullout.

Other senior Labor figures have warned that unless the operation ends, they may pull out of the government, seriously weakening it.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, also of the Labor Party, met with U.S. officials in Washington. Afterward, he told Israel TV that Israel would pull out "soon."

Much of the incursion's focus has been on the biblical town of Bethlehem. Yesterday, gunfire there subsided as about 6,000 people, led by Christian clergy, marched to protest the violence. "God of peace, give our land peace," the crowd chanted as Israeli troops and tanks moved aside.

Israeli tanks held positions a few miles from the Church of the Nativity, marking the traditional birthplace of Jesus.

In his statement Monday, Reeker said Palestinians must arrest militants and stop attacks, but castigated Israel for killing Palestinian civilians. Since Israel's operations began Thursday, 28 Palestinians have been killed, many of them unarmed civilians.

Meir said civilian casualties were unfortunate but unavoidable and drew a parallel to the U.S. operation in Afghanistan. "We see it now in Afghanistan. We see it in other places where the West is fighting terrorism," he said.

Overall, 707 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 186 on the Israeli side in almost 13 months of violence.