Tanks roll in as Israel looks for reprisals

Israeli tanks swept into the Palestinian city of Nablus today in retaliation for Wednesday's devastating bomb attack at a university in Jerusalem.

Within hours three Palestinian gunmen were reported dead as 150 armoured vehicles moved into the narrow alleyways. Heavy machine gun fire could be heard echoing through the streets.

Until now troops have avoided entering the cramped streets because of the risk of fighting at close quarters but Israel's internal security is said to have evidence that the Hebrew University bomb was prepared in a workshop in the area.

Shortly after midnight, just hours after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised revenge, tanks and armoured personnel carriers took up positions in the middle of Nablus according to residents. They had moved in from four directions and surrounded the Old City. As soldiers left their vehicles and moved into the alleyways fierce gunfire erupted.

The presence of army bulldozers indicated they intended to tear down houses.

In the nearby village of Salem, Israeli soldiers surrounded the house of a Hamas activist, Amjad Jubur, 28, and according to a neighbour, shot him dead after handcuffing his hands behind his back.

Hamas had admitted responsibility for the university bomb which killed seven people, including five Americans, and wounded dozens of others. They claimed it was a direct retaliation for last week's Israeli air strike in Gaza that killed a Hamas leader, his lieutenant and 13 others, including nine children.

Israel took control of Nablus last March after a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings. For four days thousands of Palestinians have taken to the streets of the city in protest at a curfew imposed two weeks ago.

In a statement justifying today's incursion, the Israeli military said: "Nablus serves as a focus of activity of terror groups, led by Hamas and Fatah. These groups have recently carried out many terror attacks in the West Bank, including suicide attacks."

Just as the Israeli troops moved into Nablus the bodies of two of the American victims of the university-bomb were put aboard an El Al plane at Ben Gurion International Airport bound for New York. Simple wooden caskets held the remains of Benjamin Blutstein, 25, and Janis Ruth Coulter, 36. US ambassador Daniel Kurtzer said: "Their lives are testimony to the values shared by the US and Israel, lives of religious commitment and tolerance. Terrorists cannot live by these values, so they murder beautiful young people."

Israeli forces also blew up a three-storey house in Hebron belonging to the family of a Palestinian who carried out an attack in Jerusalem last November.

In the Gaza Strip, one Palestinian was killed and two wounded in exchanges of fire when Israeli troops moved to destroy buildings along the border with Egypt.

Yesterday a UN report rejected Palestinian claims of a massacre in the Jenin refugee camp but said Israeli forces and Palestinian militants both violated international law. It accused Palestinian militants of using civilian areas as cover but said Israel had shelled and fired rockets at civilian areas and had delayed critical medical and humanitarian aid.