Israeli special forces killed an alleged senior Hamas bomb-maker today in an attack which also left at least one of his deputies dead.
Israeli security sources said Israeli troops killed the militant in a raid on a house in the West Bank city of Nablus.
Israeli security sources said the man, Muhanad al-Taher, head of Hamas's military wing in the Nablus area, and his men were responsible for the deaths of more than 100 Israelis in suicide bombings, including an attack on a Jerusalem city bus that killed 19 people two weeks ago.
The Israeli strike followed the removal of 11 illegal Jewish settler outposts in the West Bank ordered by Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer who vowed to dismantle rogue settlements vulnerable to the Palestinian revolt.
The outposts, many of them uninhabited clusters of a few trailer homes, were built without state permission on isolated hilltops. Ben-Eliezer said the outposts were too isolated to be protected and that 10 more would come down in the coming days.
Settlers claim a biblical right to the land but Palestinians and most countries regard the settlements as illegal and an obstacle to Middle East peacemaking.
Adding to the pressure on the Palestinians, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington was no longer talking to Yasser Arafat and had no plans to do so in the future.
US President George W. Bush called in a speech last week for Arafat's replacement as Palestinian leader, saying his Authority was tainted by terrorism and corruption.
Yasser Arafat, speaking by satellite link to an audience of business and political leaders in Crans Montana, Switzerland, offered to meet Bush "any time, anywhere" to promote Middle East peace, despite the president's call for his removal.
Israel has killed dozens of Palestinian militants it claims planned attacks on Israelis. Palestinians have branded the killings "state-sponsored assassinations."
A bomb that Israeli police said had been planted by Palestinian militants exploded today on a train track in central Israel, slightly injuring four people.
Israeli military sources said two Palestinian ambulances had been stopped in the West Bank city of Ramallah with 27 people inside, some of them wanted men. Palestinian officials said the vehicles transported only medical crews.
At least 1,430 Palestinians and 548 Israelis have been killed since the uprising against Israeli occupation began in September 2000 after talks on a Palestinian state stalled.