LONDON: Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, on Saturday bowed to American demands to condemn ‘terrorism’ in a dramatic move that raised hopes of a breakthrough in the Middle East.

Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, was set to meet Arafat in a bid to broker an end to the violence that has wracked the region for the past 18 months. After days of high tension, Arafat issued a statement condemning all ‘terrorism’, whether by Israelis or Palestinians, and referring specifically to the suicide bombing in Jerusalem on Friday that prompted Powell to cancel an earlier scheduled meeting.

But Islamist groups pledged that the suicide attacks would continue, Israeli officials demanded ‘actions, not words’, and there was no sign that Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, would bow to growing international pressure to end the military operation he launched two weeks ago in the West Bank and Gaza.

Israeli tanks on Saturday entered several Palestinian villages near Nablus, Ramallah and Jenin, the site of ferocious fighting last week between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militias that has left dozens of Israelis and hundreds of Palestinians dead. Along Israel’s northern frontier with Lebanon, Syrian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas engaged Israeli tanks and artillery in a fierce firefight.

Arafat’s statement, issued in Arabic, said: “We strongly condemn all the attacks targeting civilians from both sides, and especially the attack that took place against Israeli citizens in Jerusalem.”

But the Palestinian leader appeared to have pleased the Americans with his statement. It expressed ‘deep condemnation for all terrorist activities, whether it is state terrorism, terrorism by a group or individual terrorism’.

“This position comes from our steady principle that rejects using violence and terror against civilians as a way to achieve political goals,” it said.

Arafat also criticized the ‘brutal aggression’ of Israel’s two-week offensive in the West Bank and the continuing ‘occupation’.

Danny Ayalon - an aide to Sharon - said Israel was not interested in ‘obscure press statements’ from the Palestinian leader but ‘in concrete actions taken against terrorism’.

Even if Powell does meet the Palestinian leader, there are still huge obstacles to even a temporary truce, let alone any lasting peace. Washington’s condemnation of the Israeli military operation early last week has turned in recent days to strong support for Sharon’s tough stance - a reflection, analysts say, of factional fighting within the Bush administration.

With increasing vocal opposition from European leaders a rift appears to be opening between Europe and the United States which could have far-reaching consequences for the ‘war on terrorism’ launched in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

Blair’s attempts to hold together a fragile European consensus on military action against Iraq are likely to be compromised by Washington’s perceived failure to restrain Sharon.

Tony Blair said the Israeli military response would only fuel Palestinian reprisals. On Friday afternoon the Israeli ambassador in London was summoned to the Foreign Office following reports of hundreds of deaths and human rights abuses in the Jenin refugee camp last week.

Israeli forces deny massacres, but they remain in control of four of the main Palestinian towns on the West Bank - Bethlehem, Ramallah, Jenin and Nablus. Friday’s suicide bombing was the second in three days. On Wednesday, nine people were killed and scores injured when a bomber blew himself up on a bus outside the northern Israeli town of Haifa.

Britain strongly backed US demands earlier this week for the Israelis to pullback their forces from the occupied territories though Downing Street has been non-committal about a call by Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, to send in an international force.

The Palestinian leadership is demanding that an international tribunal investigate what it says was a massacre of 500 Palestinians by the army within Jenin refugee camp and for an international peacekeeping force to be sent to the Palestinian West Bank cities reoccupied by the army.—Dawn/The Observer News Service.