TEL AVIV, June 25: Israel, buoyed by US President George W. Bush’s new hardline policy on the Middle East, on Tuesday seized the West Bank’s largest city and geared up for a major push on the Gaza Strip.

Dozens of Israeli tanks and armoured personnel carriers poured into Al Khalil before dawn, killing four Palestinian security officials and arresting more than 100 others in the latest crackdown.

The move came just hours after Bush delivered his much-anticipated statement on the Middle East on Monday, clearly urging the ouster of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as a pre-condition for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

The speech was widely interpreted here as giving Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government a free hand to take military action against the Palestinians.

Several dozen Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles moved into Al Khalil, a city of 140,000, and clamped a curfew, while an armoured column rumbled into the nearby town of Dura.

Two Palestinian policemen, an intelligence official and a security official were killed when the Israelis opened fire on the Palestinian leadership’s Al Khalil offices.

At least five other people were wounded.

More than 100 Palestinian policemen were also arrested in the attack on the building that houses various Palestinian security services and the Al Khalil governor’s office.

Among those taken prisoner were Nizam al-Jaabari, the head of the city’s intelligence services, and Sheikh Jawad al-Natshe, a political leader of Hamas, the sources said.—AFP