Six Palestinians Killed Wednesday, 3 Others Overnight.
Occupation Troops Enter Jaba'a South of Jenin.
Senators Equate Israel's War Against Palestinians With That of Their Own Against Al-Qaeda.

Two Palestinians died Wednesday as a result of clashes near Hebron while four others died of occupation operations in the West Bank and Gaza.

Palestinian security sources said Yaqoub al-Sarayrah, a leader of Arafat's Fatah faction, was one of two men killed in an Israeli raid on Bani Naim, near Hebron. They said four people had been wounded and 15 detained.

Witnesses said a helicopter had fired missiles into a cave, while tanks and bulldozers moved through Bani Naim. They said occupation troops had raided three other villages around Hebron.

In the Gaza Strip three Palestinians, at least two of them known militants, were killed in an explosion in a house in Jabalya refugee camp, witnesses said. Police were investigating.

In Jenin, 10-year-old Assad Faisal Ersan died of wounds sustained in a mine explosion in the camp three days ago. Hospital sources said he had lost both legs in the blast.

Israeli troops entered the town of Jaba'a south of Jenin in a search for militants, witnesses said. Occupation soldiers wounded eight people in the town earlier when protesters stoned them.

Occupation troops killed three Palestinian boys near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim on Tuesday night. Relatives said they were 14-year-old classmates from Gaza City.

US Backing for Israel Approaches Absolute Support

Palestinian Information Minister, Yasser Abed Rabbo said Israel was defying the whole world, confident that it had the support of the U.S. administration.

In Washington, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay suggested Tuesday that Israel should not withdraw from territory captured in the 1967 war, and he equated Israel's struggle against the Palestinians with the U.S. war on terrorism.

DeLay's remarks were the latest example of unflinching support for Israel among many U.S. conservative Christians. The Texas Republican got a half-dozen standing ovations from a Washington conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the chief pro-Israel lobbying group.

Meanwhile, and in a move to put the Congress on record backing Israel in the Middle East conflict, two senators, Connecticut Democrat Joseph Lieberman and Oregon Republican Gordon Smith, on Monday introduced a bipartisan resolution expressing solidarity with Israel and saying it shares a common struggle with the United States against terrorism.

The Senate resolution also was co-sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat who said US support for Israel must be absolute.

However, some AIPAC advocates of a negotiated end to the conflict say efforts to equate the Israeli-Palestinian struggle with the U.S. war on al-Qaeda terrorists hurt U.S. credibility in the Arab world and make it harder to end the violence.

''This could make it impossible for the United States to play a diplomatic role,'' warned M.J. Rosenberg of the Israel Policy Forum, which promotes an active U.S. role in negotiating Middle East peace.

PHOTO CAPTION

Israeli soldiers scan the area as they patrol a narrow street in the Old City of Bethlehem, April 24, 2002. Tanks and troops raided West Bank villages, killing two Palestinians, as Israel wrangled over a U.N. investigation into events at the shattered Jenin refugee camp. Photo by Oleg Popov/Reuters REUTERS/Oleg Popov