MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - 4/11/01: More from BBC and AFP: The Israelis won't be returning to "Zone A"; why should they? After all one of the major goals of the Madrid-Oslo "Peace Process" was to get the Palestinians into isolated and controlled "autonomous population centers" and let them fend for themselves. Once more the Palestinians stepped right into an Israeli and American trap -- this one among history's biggest -- with the Palestinian "leaders" who did so being well-rewarded with huge sums of money, regular visits to the White House, and very special VIP privileges. It has all lead to this:

DATELINE: GAZA CITY, April 11 - Agence France Press:

Israel sent its tanks storming into Palestinian-ruled territory early Wednesday for the first time since the outbreak of deadly violence six months ago, saying it wanted to blast the Palestinians back to the negotiating table.

A Palestinian policeman and a civilian were killed and around 40 wounded during Israel's overnight shelling of the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, a bombardment condemned by a Palestinian official who said Israel had "crossed all the red lines."

Palestinians said 27 homes were destroyed in the unprecedented raid, which Israel said was aimed at taking out buildings suspected of serving as bases for mortar attacks against Jewish settlements and army posts in the area.

"We want to return to the negotiating table and the goal of the army's operations is to show the Palestinians that they have every interest in resuming the path of negotiations," Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer said.

But he said Israel had no intention of retaking Palestinian-controlled territory.

"The operation succeeded but we don't intend to return to Zone A," Ben Eliezer said, referring to the areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that are under full Palestinian security and administrative control.

Israeli army radio's military commentator Carmela Menasheh described the operation as the first on such a large scale in the Palestinian autonomous areas and a "new stage in the escalation of the fighting."

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's top aide Nabil Abu Rudeina said the Palestinians had been in contact with the United States and Europe since the latest Israeli "aggression."

"Israel has got the Palestinian track and the entire region into danger and to a state where we can say only that the situation has crossed all the red lines and that Israeli government has pushed the situation towards more escalation and new atrocities. Israel and the region will pay the price for that," he told Voice of Palestine radio.

The Israeli incursion into Palestinian-ruled territory followed a daylight missile strike on Tuesday on Palestinian military posts in the Gaza Strip after a spate of mortar attacks against Jewish settlements.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ordered a series of retaliatory strikes against the Palestinians after adopting a "gloves-off" approach in late March to a series of deadly anti-Israeli attacks.

Colonel Lior Shalev, who commanded the overnight operation, said Israeli soldiers had penetrated between 300 and 350 metres (yards) into zone A.

"We were forced to use all the means at our disposal," he told army radio. "There was very heavy fighting, in the course of which we were forced to shoot at those firing at us from a number of directions, bullets, anti-tank missiles, as well as mortars some of the time."

Ben Eliezer also told army radio that Israel still wanted new security talks with the Palestinians aimed at quelling the violence, that has killed more than 470 people since late September.

"I don't know if such a meeting will take place," he said. "We were ready to take part yesterday, we still are today, but unfortunately the Palestinians are making all sorts of artificial excuses for not coming."

The first formal security meeting since Sharon took office a month ago was marred when Israeli troops fired on the convoy of Palestinian officials returning to Gaza and the Palestinians are demanding an apology before resuming the talks.

Sharon wrote to US Secretary of State Colin Powell expressing his regret over the "unfortunate" incident, but stopped short of apologising.

A senior US official said Tuesday that Washington hoped security talks would resume this week.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, speaking from Turkey, told army radio he also wanted to see "contacts with Palestinian officials leading to a reduction in the violence."

The dovish Peres did not rule out meeting Arafat, whom some hardliners in the Sharon government now see as beyond the pale -- Internal Security Minister Uzi Landau again branded him a war criminal Wednesday -- but said it would have to be well-prepared.

Meanwhile, in an interview published Wednesday, Sharon said he would annex Jewish settlements in occupied territory if the Palestinians unilaterally declared an independent state.

The hardline former general also told the Haaretz newspaper he had no intention of evacuating the some 150 settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, even under a deal with the Palestinians.

Sharon, who led a massive settlement drive as a minister in previous right-wing governments, said Arafat would be making a "major mistake" if he unilaterally declared an independent state.

Asked if he would annex settlements and security zones, he said: "Certainly. All that is needed. Therefore, I advise them not to do it. It would be a mistake."

The presence of some 200,000 settlers in land occupied by Israel in the 1967 war is one of the roots of the Palestinian intifada or uprising and international opposition to the settlements has mounted in recent days following a series of expansion projects in the West Bank.

BBC News Online:

Israeli tanks and bulldozers have entered a Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip and destroyed a number of buildings.

It is the first such operation since the Palestinian uprising began six months ago.

Witnesses said the tanks fired shells and machine-guns as they advanced into the Khan Yunis camp.

This sparked fierce fighting, in which two Palestinians have been killed and at least 50 wounded, and casts doubt on US efforts to convene a meeting of Israeli and Palestinian security officials.

The Israeli army says the operation was launched to remove a sand embankment which, it says, is used by Palestinian gunmen to shoot at nearby Jewish settlements.

Palestinians responded to the attack by firing mortars on a Jewish settlement.

The Israeli action, on Tuesday night, was opposed by hundreds of armed Palestinian civilians and security forces, witnesses said.

Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian negotiator, accused Israel of being "cowardly" in using tanks, missiles and gunships to attack the Palestinians.

He told the BBC Israel was "using the pretext of Palestinian violence to give Israel the green light to continue this massacre and this ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people".

Mr Erekat reiterated the Palestinians' demand for an international observer force to be sent to monitor the conflict, saying: "My question for Mr Sharon is: 'What do you have to hide from the international community?'".

Khan Younis has been the scene of some of the most intense fighting in more than six months of Palestinian uprising.

Loudspeakers in the camp had called for every resident who had a weapon to take it up and defend himself.

The camp's power was cut, cloaking the clashes in nearly total darkness.

The French news agency AFP reported that A Palestinian civilian and a Palestinian police officer died of injuried sustained in the fighting.

Earlier, a Palestinian official had said senior Israeli and Palestinian security officials would meet on Wednesday to try to bring an end to six months of violence in the West Bank and Gaza.

But correspondents say the latest violence has cast doubt on whether the new round of security talks would go ahead.

As part of a separate attempt to revive peace talks, Labour member of the Israeli parliament and former peace negotiator, Yossi Beilin, is expected to meet Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Wednesday, according to Israeli radio.

The latest fighting follows Tuesday's Israeli rocket attack on the Palestinian naval and military intelligence bases in Beit Lahia, south of Nisanit.

A Palestinian military doctor was killed and at least 17 other people were injured.

About a dozen others were injured in a tank shell attack on a military intelligence base in Deir el-Balah.

The Israeli army said the attack on the Palestinian military intelligence base was in retaliation for three mortar bombs fired at a Jewish settlement in Gaza earlier on Tuesday. No-one was injured in this attack.

Senior Palestinian figures are now referring to the current Israeli attacks as a "state of war".

More than six months of conflict have left more than 460 dead, among them 370-plus Palestinians, about 70 Israeli Jews, and about 20 Arab Israelis.