The eight-hour street battle, involving some 60 Israeli tanks and armoured troop carriers support by Apache helicopter gunships, dealt a heavy blow to international hopes that the newly unveiled peace "roadmap'' would prove a quick balm for the 31-month conflict.

Two other Palestinian men were killed south of Hebron in the West Bank during a night operation by the army searching for suspected militants.

The large Israeli force stormed into the densely populated district of Shajaiya in Gaza City at 3 am to hunt down Yusef Abu Hin, military leader of the radical Islamic group's armed wing.

Hamas, together with an armed offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed joint responsibility for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv in a late-night bar early on Wednesday morning which killed three people, including a French woman.

The Gaza raid was launched hours after international diplomats handed copies of the peace roadmap to newly sworn in Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, who has vowed to tackle violence, and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has expressed strong concerns about security issues arising from the plan.

The plan calls for an end to violence, an Israeli pullback from Palestinian territories and a freeze on Jewish settlements as steps to creating a Palestinin state by the end of 2005.

Seven Israeli soldiers were injured as they ran into stiff resistance from Hamas loyalists inside a four-storey building where the Hamas militant chief was believed to be holed up, while the wanted Hamas man's brother, Fadel Abu Hin, said there were some 50 women and children inside the building.

On Wednesday peace hopes rose with the presentation of the long-delayed roadmap, with US President George W. Bush called on both parties to work with the United States, other powers, and "above all, directly with each other to immediately end the violence and return to a path of peace.''

Bush said the moderate Abbas, whose appointment was expected to weaken Arafat's power and lead to a resumption of peace talks, was a man he could "work with.''

Despite the explosion of violence, Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz has created a special committee to negotiate with the Palestinians, his ministry said.

General Amos Gilad, the co-ordinator for government activities in the Palestinian territories, was appointed to head the committee which will discuss security chapters of the roadmap and ways of curbing the violence.

(China Daily May 2, 2003)