WASHINGTON, March 7: US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday softened unusually blunt criticism of Israel he delivered earlier this week but again cautioned the Jewish state on its military responses to Palestinian attacks.

At the same time, Powell renewed Washington’s demands that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat do more to rein in anti-Israel violence and both he and the White House signalled that there would be no high-level US intervention until the current escalation diminished.

“I believe that Chairman Arafat has to do more than he is doing to get the violence down and he can,” Powell told the House Budget Committee.

“I have also suggested that the Israeli side — faced with the legitimate problem of self defence, they have to defend their people — they have to be very careful about the means they use to defend their people,” he said.

“In recent months it just produced a series of escalations rather than bringing things under control.”

His remarks were in contrast to those delivered to another Congressional panel on Wednesday in which he said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon “has to take a hard look at his policies and see whether they will work.”

Sharon had earlier told the Israeli parliament he was waging “a real war against a cruel and bloodthirsty enemy,” after a weekend of Palestinian attacks that killed 22 Israelis.

“If you declare war against the Palestinians and think you can solve the problem by seeing how many Palestinians you can kill, I don’t know that that leads us anywhere,” Powell said Wednesday.

In the past week alone, clashes between Israelis and Palestinians have left more than 100 people dead, bringing the toll since the Palestinian uprising erupted to almost 1,400.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher issued a quick call for Israeli restraint as news of the Israeli strikes appeared.

“Continued targeting by the Israeli military of Palestinian administrative and security facilities clearly works against the overriding objective of reducing violence and returning to negotiations,” Boucher said.

“Such actions should be halted now,” he said. “It is imperative that the Israeli Defence Forces exercise the utmost restraint and discipline to avoid further harm to civilians,” he said.

Only when violence abates, will the US send Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni back to the region, Powell and White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.—AFP