Three Palestinians killed in West Bank

JERUSALEM -- Israeli troops killed three Palestinians during a West Bank dragnet Thursday and locked down the Gaza Strip in an operation against the militant Islamic group Hamas.

The tough military measures were in tandem with tentative steps toward a possible truce to end 29 months of Mideast violence.

The diplomatic focus was an international plan to stop fighting, disengage forces and create a provisional Palestinian state in about three years.

Meeting in London, envoys from the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union -- the so-called Quartet putting together the "road map" -- called Thursday for an immediate, comprehensive cease-fire by Israelis and Palestinians.

Israeli and Palestinian officials also have been holding talks in London, where U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Burns met Palestinian Cabinet ministers.

Speaking in Jerusalem on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon again rejected two key Palestinian demands in any final peace settlement -- a capital in Jerusalem and return of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to their original homes in Israel.

In Thursday's violence, Israeli soldiers shot dead a 17-year-old Palestinian and fatally wounded his grandfather as they walked home from a nearby mosque in the West Bank city of Nablus, neighbors said.

The army said they were part of a group throwing firebombs at troops.

Manhunt under way

Troops are conducting a massive manhunt in Nablus. Israel Radio said 40 Palestinian suspects had been rounded up there since Wednesday night.

Residents said that Israeli soldiers went door to door through the narrow streets of the Old City looking for suspects and called through loudspeakers for Palestinians to hand over wanted men.

The troops used small explosive charges to blow locks off shops, and a goldsmith's workshop was destroyed. Such shops can hold chemicals that can also be used in bomb making, and soldiers have demolished several in previous raids.

Soldiers also killed a 24-year-old Palestinian in the town of Tulkarem. The army said the man was armed, but Palestinians said he was an unarmed Hamas supporter.

Since a Gaza attack on an Israeli tank Saturday killed four soldiers, setting off an Israeli campaign against Hamas, 30 Palestinians have been killed, including at least eight Hamas members.

In the Gaza Strip, the scene of most of the recent violence, Israeli soldiers built dirt barricades to block Gaza's main north-south road and divide the territory into three parts by blocking vehicle traffic.

As in the past, Palestinians sought to evade the barriers by traveling along a narrow strip of beach to reach their jobs, visit hospitals or take care of other business.

Subhi Abu Assad, 48, was desperate to get three tons of squash to market before it went bad. His solution was to remove the squash from his truck and put it on a trailer bed, attached to a tractor, which he drove along the beach.

"It normally takes about an hour to an hour-and-a-half to go to market and come back," he said. "We started at seven this morning and it will probably take all day."

The army said its Gaza operation was in response to Palestinian rocket fire Wednesday, when several missiles were launched from northern Gaza at the Israeli town of Sderot, just outside the territory. One Israeli was injured.

The military said another four rockets were fired into Israel after nightfall Thursday, but they exploded in an unpopulated area.

In another development, Israeli authorities approved construction of 126 houses in Efrat, a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Kobi Bleich, a Housing Ministry spokesman, said there was a demand for additional homes in Efrat as the population continued to grow. Palestinians claim all of the West Bank and Gaza for a future state and demand the removal of all 150 Jewish settlements and the more than 225,000 residents.

In London, Burns told the Palestinians that formal talks on the "road map" peace plan would not resume until Sharon has formed a new government -- a process that could take several more weeks -- and would also depend on developments in Iraq, said Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat, a participant at the meeting.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Thursday that Israel wants more than 100 changes made to the road map, including leaving the timetable open-ended, dropping the Palestinian demand for the "right of return" of millions of Palestinians to what is now Israel and ousting Yasser Arafat from the Palestinian leadership.