Israel raids Ramallah before Olmert-Mubarak summit

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Jan 4 (Reuters) Israeli forces mounted a rare raid into the West Bank city of Ramallah today, killing four Palestinians and detaining four wanted men, hours before an Israeli-Egyptian summit on peacemaking.

Smoke rose over central Ramallah after Israeli armoured vehicles and bulldozers, slamming aside parked cars near the main Manara Square, pushed into the city to carry out what an Israeli army spokeswoman called ''routine arrest activity''.

She said four wanted men had been detained.

The raid was the biggest in Ramallah since May, when four Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces. Palestinians responded to the latest incursion with gunfire and rocks.

Palestinian security sources said an Israeli helicopter had poured machinegun fire into a building near Manara Square. An Israeli army spokesman said the helicopter had fired at ''an open area'', not at a structure.

Hospital officials said four Palestinians had been killed and at least 25 other people had been wounded before Israeli forces withdrew.

The operation was launched a few hours before Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak were to meet in Egypt to explore prospects for restarting stalled Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking and, possibly, to discuss extending a Gaza ceasefire to the West Bank.

''I believe that when President Mubarak invites Mr Olmert, he has one thing in mind: to help the Palestinians and help revive the peace process,'' Saeb Erekat, a top aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said on al-Jazeera television.

''Such incursions and such Israeli policies are absolutely undermining such efforts.'' A senior leader of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group in Abbas's Fatah faction, said the Israeli operation was aimed at capturing one of its top members.

In a separate incursion in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, Israeli forces wounded one Palestinian and took him into custody, Palestinian security officials said.

Israel frequently carries out raids in the West Bank to detain suspected militants, but largely stays out of Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian government.

PALESTINIAN FACTIONAL FIGHTING Earlier, in the Gaza Strip, a Hamas policeman and a security officer loyal to Fatah were killed and three other people were wounded in the latest fighting between rival Palestinian factions, witnesses said.

Yesterday, five people were killed in the worst internal fighting since Hamas and Fatah agreed a shaky ceasefire in Gaza two weeks ago.

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas called for calm.

''Weapons must be directed only against the Israeli occupation,'' Haniyeh told reporters after returning from making the Haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.

Violence surged in Gaza after Abbas challenged Hamas by calling for early parliamentary and presidential elections after talks on forming a unity government failed.

REUTERS PB HT2150