December 7, 2001	Friday	Ramazan 21, 1422

GAZA, Dec 6: Baton-wielding Palestinian police battled stone-throwing protesters and armed supporters of the Hamas movement on Thursday after President Yasser Arafat put their spiritual leader under house arrest.

One Hamas supporter was killed in the clashes, which highlighted Arafat’s difficulties in responding to US and Israeli pressure to rein in militants after a wave of devastating suicide attacks in Israel.

The battles began on Wednesday night and flared again as Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher started a new peace mission by meeting Israeli leaders and US envoy Anthony Zinni held talks with Arafat in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Maher and Zinni were spearheading efforts to avert a slide into all-out war after the bombings, which avenged Israel’s killing of a Hamas leader, and retaliatory Israeli air strikes in one of the bloodiest weeks of a 14-month-old conflict.

But fresh Israeli-Palestinian violence flared in the Gaza Strip on Thursday when Palestinians fired mortar bombs at a Jewish settlement area. The army said a gun battle erupted and troops killed an armed Palestinian gunman. Palestinian security sources said the dead man was a naval policeman.

Violence flared in Gaza City after police placed Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin under house arrest and thousands of people gathered outside in protest.

Masked Hamas supporters ringed Yassin’s home and fired warning shots when the Palestinian police, using their batons, charged at stone-throwing youths protesting in support of Hamas.

“Yassin did not do anything wrong,” a young protester said.

Hamas supporter Mohammed Selmi, 21, died after being shot in the back late on Wednesday, hospital sources said. Relatives said he was shot by policemen but the police denied this.

SITUATION CRITICAL: Hamas bombers killed 25 people in Jerusalem and Haifa at the weekend, prompting the United States to demand the clampdown by Arafat and triggering Israeli air raids on Palestinian security installations and symbols of Palestinian power.

Arafat says it is hard to make arrests while Israel carries out air strikes and restricts the movement of his police. He has accused Israel of trying to topple him and the Palestinian Authority but Israeli officials deny this. US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Arafat had to do more.

“The very fact that they are resisting his authority makes it all the more important for him to apply that authority,” Powell told a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

He said Arafat had made some progress in cracking down on militants in the last 24 hours but “more is required”.

Maher met Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon straight after arriving in Israel and then went into a separate meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

Peres told reporters he and Maher had discussed how to establish an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire. The Egyptian foreign minister said his talks with Peres had been “candid” but that the two men “did not see