NAblus
House destroyed after battle
An Israeli soldier and a Palestinian were killed in a gunbattle in Nablus early today.
The fighting took place after troops cornered a wanted militant in a seven-storey building. Three other soldiers were wounded.
The dead Palestinian may have been Mohammed al-Hanbali, the local leader of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
Israel declared an all-out war on the radical Hamas movement earlier this week and vowed to hunt down militants because it said the Palestinian Authority had failed to do so.
But Mahmoud Abbas has reiterated his wish to use negotiations rather than violence in dealing with armed groups.
Mr Abbas' choice of diplomacy prompted Israel's Foreign Minister, Silvan Shalom, to call his stance 'very serious'.
Meanwhile, Italy said it would use its position as current president of the European Union to press member-states to join the United States in blacklisting Hamas.
In the Gaza Strip, the army raided the southern town of Rafah, near the border with Egypt, levelling agricultural land and destroying a two-storey civilian house and part of a reception hall.
