Israel occupies key West Bank city

The Israeli army has siezed control of most of the West Bank city of Ramallah in its biggest operation since the Palestinian uprising began nearly 18 months ago. It follows an Israeli incursion overnight into the Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip in which at least 19 Palestinians died and many more were wounded.

Eyewitnesses said that more than 100 Israeli tanks are involved in the operation in Ramalla

House-to-house searches are being conducted throughout the city, although the main target is the al-Amari refugee camp, from where three suicide bombers - one a woman - have launched recent attacks against Israeli targets. There have been fierce exchanges of fire and tanks have moved to within 20 metres of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's headquarters. An Israeli spokesman denied that Mr Arafat's building had been fired on and stressed that he was not the target of the operation.

The army says it plans to arrest militants and dismantle what it calls the infrastructure of terror - such as bomb-making workshops

A Palestinian academic in Ramallah, Mustapha Bargouti, said there had been casualties, but he was unable to give details. He accused the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, of trying to destroy the structures of a Palestinian state. The BBC's Paul Wood, reporting from Jerusalem, says that as Palestinian suicide bomb attacks continue, the Israelis have moved from repeated punitive air strikes against what are usually empty Palestinian Authority buildings to operations involving troops on the ground. He says this is why the United States and the European Union fear that the region is edging towards all-out war.

Palestinian casualties are mounting

Arafat 'house arrest' lifted

Israeli officials say the offensive will continue, at least until the American peace envoy, Anthony Zinni, arrives in the region later this week. Monday saw Israel announce that it was lifting its travel ban on Mr Arafat, who has been confined to Ramallah, in return for his arrest of all the suspected assassins of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi.

The 19 deaths at the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza - a stronghold for Palestinian national and Islamic groups - came after six Palestinians died on Monday in clashes in Ramallah and the northern Gaza Strip. One eyewitness in Jabaliya reported heavy fighting between Israeli troops and gunmen in the streets of the camp. Some residents fled and made their way into nearby Gaza City. Israeli military sources said the Jabalya operation, which lasted three hours, was a targeted mission to locate factories which make rockets and mortar shells.

'Nazi behaviour'

Monday also saw as many as 1,000 Palestinians taken away, hooded and blindfolded, from refugee camps in Bethlehem and Qalqilya on the West Bank. Mr Arafat accused Israeli soldiers of behaving like Nazis in the round-ups. In an interview broadcast on Abu Dhabi television, he said Israeli soldiers had written numbers on the arms of Palestinians they arrested in a similar operation in Tulkarm last week. "Is this not one of the methods used by the Nazis against the Jews," Mr Arafat asked. "Is this not a new Nazi racism? Is this acceptable to the international community?"

Israeli society is split over Sharon's approach