Palestinians die in Israel car blast

Israeli soldiers and tanks took over a hilltop in Nablus

Two Palestinians have been killed when their car blew up in northern Israel.

Israeli police say they suspect the two, who had crossed the border from the West Bank, were planning a bomb attack on a nearby Israeli city.

Israeli TV later reported that a woman allegedly stabbed by four masked Palestinians earlier in the day had died of her wounds. One of the suspects, aged 14, died after the four were arrested.

Police sources said the four, residents of the mixed Jewish-Arab neighbourhood of Abu Tor, were arrested after a chase in a valley under a popular promenade which overlooks the Old City.

A police spokesman said the 14-year-old suspect collapsed and died despite attempts by paramedics to resuscitate him.

The suspects were said to be carrying knives and tear gas.

The incidents followed Israeli incursions into Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank, in which they seized three suspected militants.

West Bank raids

Israeli forces raided the West Bank town of Nablus and at least two villages in the area, arresting three suspected militants.

The operations follow a Palestinian attack on a Jewish settlement in the Jordan Valley that killed three Israelis on Wednesday.

Two Israeli tanks and a bulldozer entered a neighbourhood of Nablus, taking over a building, which overlooks the city from a hilltop.

Three families were forced to leave, witnesses said.

I see [the raids] as a part of the continuing Israeli aggression to destroy the peace process and to destroy the Palestinian Authority

Palestinian Minister Saeb Erekat

Israeli tanks also drove into the village of Tamoun in search of militants.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said the village, with a population of 7,000 Palestinians, had a "concentration of people who are planning attacks in Israel".

Tamoun is about 10 kilometres (6 miles) from the Jewish settlement of Hamra, where a Palestinian gunman on Wednesday killed a soldier, a woman and her disabled daughter before soldiers shot him dead.

The army says it has warnings about attacks against Israelis being organised in these areas, and it is taking preventive action because Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is not.

Israel 'hampering' arrests

The Palestinian authority argues that Israel is not letting it do its job.

It says some of the militants it had arrested were set free on Thursday after Israel bombed the Nablus government complex where they were being held.

The raids followed the killing of three Israeli settlers on Wednesday

In other towns, like nearby Jenin, there is no place to put militants because the prison has been destroyed, the BBC's Barbara Plett reports.

The latest incursions came after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met in Washington with US President George W Bush.