RAMALLAH, Jan 4: A suspected member of the Hamas organisation was killed on Friday as an Israeli army unit, backed by tanks and helicopters, entered a village in the West Bank, Israeli and Palestinian sources said.

The soldiers were searching for Palestinians on Israel’s wanted list in the Palestinian-controlled village of Tel, near Nablus. The Palestinian was reportedly killed during gunbattles.

The army has declared the village a closed military zone for as long as the search continued, an army spokeswoman told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Palestinian sources said Israeli bulldozers destroyed in the village the house of a Hamas activist killed two months ago, while the army arrested two members of his family also suspected of being active in Hamas.

The latest Israeli incursion came as the United States envoy to the Middle East, Anthony Zinni, met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Defence Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer at Sharon’s farm in southern Israel.

Zinni was to meet with Palestinian President Yassir Arafat later in the day at Arafat’s West Bank headquarters in Ramallah.

The US envoy arrived Thursday on a mission to stabilize Israeli-Palestinian ceasefires in order to secure an eventual return to peace negotiations.—dpa