AL KHALIL, June 27: Israeli forces continued pounding the Al Khalil headquarters of Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority on Thursday, as US President George W. Bush ramped up pressure on the Palestinians to dump their leader at next year’s polls.

Arafat for his part signed a decree ordering the long-demanded reform of his security services, putting the police, preventive security and civil defence under the umbrella of the recently created interior ministry.

The decree came a day after the Palestinian Authority unveiled a 100-day reform plan of sweeping changes in the financial, judicial and security sectors, all of which have come under US fire, and announced elections for January.

In Al Khalil, US-made Apache helicopters fired several rockets at the hill-top “moqataa” after Israeli troops unsuccessfully warned the estimated 20 guerillas to come out of the Palestinian Authority building “or we will destroy everything”.

Palestinian sources said officials from both sides were trying to negotiate a surrender of the Palestinians inside, but an Israeli army spokesman declined to comment on the report.

Israeli public radio said the army arrested a member of the Hezbollah in the moqataa.

Troops entered Al Khalil on Tuesday in the latest stage of Operation Determined Path, which had already seen them take over six of the eight main West Bank cities over the last week.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, a Palestinian teenager who fired at an Israeli tanks with a pistol was shot dead by troops in the Balata refugee camp, near Nablus, witnesses and a Palestinian security source said.

And Israeli troops shot and wounded three children, one seriously, in the town of Qalqilya, while further south, near Bethlehem, two other Palestinians were hurt by Israeli fire.

In the southern Gaza Strip, six Palestinians were wounded in a fierce shootout with Israeli forces near Rafah refugee camp, the sources said.

deportation ruled out: Israeli Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein has ruled that Israel cannot deport families of Palestinian suicide bombers to other countries, a Justice Ministry spokesman said on Thursday.—AFP/Reuters