Israel stepped up its operations early Thursday in Palestinian territories, killing six people in a helicopter and tank raid in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, as the relative lull that accompanied the start of the war in Iraq further dissolves.
The Israeli army expelled 1,000 Palestinian men of fighting age from their homes in a West Bank refugee camp and told them not to return until they had finished their hunt for militants.
Four of the Palestinians killed in predawn operations Thursday were in the southern Gaza refugee camp of Rafah, where the army mounted an incursion with around 40 tanks and a number of bulldozers, sparking a fire fight.
Mahmoud Shaath, 24, was killed by an Israeli tank shell while Wissam al-Shaar, also 24, and Ibrahim Shaluf, 18, died when they were hit by a rocket fired from a helicopter.
Walid al-Ledawi, 19, died later from shrapnel wounds after the missile attack.
Eight other Palestinians were injured, two of whom were in a critical condition during the incursion which penetrated up to one kilometre (0.62 miles) into the camp close to the Egyptian border, Palestinian security sources said.
A tank fired two shells and soldiers also opened fire while two assault helicopters circled overhead before one of them shot a rocket towards the camp, the sources said.
Four Israeli soldiers were slightly hurt during the operation when their armoured vehicle overturned after the explosion of a remote-controlled device, Israeli military sources said.
"Our forces combed the sector and carried out searches, then demolished four abandoned houses under which tunnels could be dug to smuggle arms in from Egypt," the army said in a state-
ment after the operation wound up.
In the West Bank, a Palestinian teenager was shot dead by Israeli troops in the town of Qalqilya, Palestinian sources said.
Jihad Mazal, 14, was killed on the doorsteps of his home as soldiers opened fire during an incursion in the northern town, they said. Several tanks and jeeps took part in the raid, during which two Palestinians were arrested.
Elsewhere, an activist with the Islamic radical group Hamas was shot dead by Israeli soldiers, security sources said.
Khaled Rehan, 28, a member of the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, opened fire on Israeli soldiers when they tried to arrest him at a house in Nablus, and he was killed in the return fire.
The latest deaths take the toll to 3,126 since the start of the intifada in September 2000. The figure includes 2,349 Palestinians and 719 Israelis.
The army said it also destroyed
overnight the home in Tulkarem of Mahmoud Marmarsh, a Hamas activist who in May 2001 carried out a suicide attack at a shopping centre in Israel that killed five Israelis and wounded 74.
Meanwhile, representatives from the Middle East Quartet, working together to develop a road map for peace in the region, were to meet Thursday in Brussels to further move towards ending hostilities between Israelis and the Palestinians, diplomats said.
The meeting will bring the EU's special Middle East envoy Miguel Angel Moratinos together with top UN, Russian and US representatives "to discuss the modalities to publish and implement the road map for the Middle East," a diplomat told AFP.
The road map foresees a series of steps necessary to end violence and the eventual creation of an independent Palestinian state.