JERUSALEM, (Islamweb & News Agencies)-The Gaza-based Palestinian National Authority (PA) sought Washington's help Wednesday to end an Israeli armoured assault against Palestinians in the Gaza strip which the PA said will drown the entire region in an unprecedented bloodbath. The Israeli onslaught claimed 21 lives including 10 in the village of Beit Rima in the West Bank in what Palestinians officials dubbed as an Israeli Massacre against Palestinians. (Map)

At least 15 Israeli tanks burst out of the darkness and into Beit Rima, around 3:00 am (0100 GMT).As the tank fire sealed off all exits, hundreds of troops combed Palestinian homes in search of Resistance men, the village council chief, Abdel Karim Jasser, told AFP by telephone.
A senior Palestinian official said most of the dead were Resistance men apparently flushed out of hiding by the door-to-door manhunt. He said they were strafed by prowling helicopter gunships as they tried to flee.

Israeli occupation troops meanwhile arrested two alleged members of a hit squad which assassinated a cabinet minister last week and killed at least six Palestinians in a raid Wednesday on the West Bank, Israeli radio reported.

PFLP VOWS REVENGE

The Israeli occupation army has launched tank incursions into several Palestinian self-rule towns since the October 17 killing of Zeevi in annexed east Jerusalem.The radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said its militants carried out the assassination to avenge the killing of the group's leader in an Israeli helicopter missile strike on his Ramallah office in August.
The Damascus-based PFLP swiftly vowed it would avenge those Palestinians killed in the armoured assault on Beit Rima. It said the dead numbered 16, all civilians.

WASHINGTON'S TIMID REQUEST FOR WITHDRAWAL IGNORED

The new incursion came despite President Bush's request that Israel withdraw ``as quickly as possible'' from Palestinian areas it has seized since Zeevi's slaying.

The Palestinian Cabinet issued a statement charging Israel with carrying out an ``ugly massacre'' in Beit Rima. The statement called for world and U.S. pressure on Israel to ``immediately put an end to this continuous aggression and offer protection for Palestinian civilians.''

Israeli occupation forces also entered another West Bank village, Deir Ghassaneh, in what the military called anti-terrorist operations.

In other towns held by Israeli occupation forces, four Palestinians were killed Wednesday. Three were ambushed by Israeli occupation soldiers in Tulkarem, Palestinians said. The Israeli occupation authorities said occupation soldiers opened fire on armed men. Just outside Jerusalem, in the West Bank town of Abu Dis, a Palestinian was shot and killed by Israeli occupation soldiers, doctors said. The Palestinian and others were throwing firebombs at occupation soldiers who fired rubber-coated steel bullets in response, the occupation army said.

In Bethlehem, a 55-year-old Palestinian man was hit by a bullet, Palestinians said. Israeli tanks and occupation troops held positions in Bethlehem a few miles from the Church of the Nativity, marking the traditional birthplace of Jesus, for a sixth day.

Arafat said that Israel is ignoring U.S. policy. Arafat spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeneh said Israel was ``challenging'' the United States by ``conducting terror'' against Palestinian civilians and refusing to withdraw from the Palestinian-controlled areas.

U.S. officials have expressed concern that the upsurge in Mideast violence could sabotage efforts to bring moderate Arab states into a coalition to fight international terrorism.

U.N. Mideast envoy Terje Roed-Larsen warned in a release Wednesday that Israel and the Palestinians faced ``the most dangerous moment in a decade.''