AL QUDS, Oct 21: Israeli tanks and troops maintained a stranglehold on six autonomous West Bank towns and killed four more Palestinians Sunday, sending shock waves through both the Palestinian Authority and Israel’s own coalition government.

The sudden surge in violence, triggered by last week’s slaying of Israeli cabinet minister Revahem Zeevi by a Palestinian radical group, drew widespread international appeals for restraint as a recent truce deal lay in ruins.

Palestinian information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo charged that the military incursions — the biggest since the start of the Palestinian uprising 13 months ago — were aimed not at retaliation or choking terror attacks but at burying the enfeebled peace process.

Heavy fighting erupted in the Al Izza refugee camp in the West Bank town of Beth-

lehem, where two Palestinians, including a police major, were killed.

In Beit Jala, on the edge of Bethlehem, a Palestinian intelligence officer was shot dead in clashes.

And an 18-year-old Palestinian girl, Ghada Aysha, was also shot dead while picking olives with her family near her home close to the locked-down city of Jenin.

In Tulkarem, 16 Palestinians were injured in the fighting, and in Ramallah two Palestinian police officers were wounded.

The deaths put the toll of a year of bloodshed at 903, including 703 Palestinians and 178 Israelis. At least 24 have been killed since Zeevi’s assassination last Wednesday.

Two Israeli soldiers were slightly wounded in the shoot-outs, the army said.—AFP