Israeli troops raid Palestinian town

Mourners march in funeral of four Palestinians killed in Tulkarem in the West Bank.

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli forces swept into a village near Ramallah Wednesday, killing a number of Palestinians, including members of three militant groups, and arresting others.

Israel said the sweep was directed against a terrorist cell responsible for the killing of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavan Ze'evi one week ago and the killing of an Israeli officer.

The incursion prompted Secretary of State Colin Powell to renew U.S. demands Wednesday that Israel immediately withdraw from Palestinian areas of the West Bank and that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat arrest Ze'evi's killers.

Powell said targeted assassinations and retaliatory strikes only make the situation even more volatile in the region.

"All you have to do is look at the events of the past several days to see that things get worse," he told the House International Relations Committee in Washington. "In an effort to get a peace process moving, we have found that that kind of activity does not move the process forward."

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A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the troops will leave Beit Rima once the "search and apprehension operation" is complete.

"What we're doing now is exercising our way to self-defense as the U.S. is doing in Afghanistan," spokesman Raanan Gissin told CNN.

"Since the Palestinian Authority did not take action, they left us with no choice but to use Mr. Bush's words 'bring justice to them,'" he said.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat called the incursion an attempt by Israel to "destroy the Palestinian Authority" and the peace process -- an accusation Gissin called "slanderous."

Erakat has urged the immediate dispatch of international monitors to the area.

The Israeli Defense Forces said it notified the Palestinian Authority 30 minutes before the start of the operation that anyone who "does not shoot or endanger the force will not be harmed."

Hamdan al Barghouti, deputy mayor of Beit Rima, said Israeli forces entered the village with tanks and helicopters.

The exact numbers of those killed and arrested was in dispute. The Israel Defense Forces said five were killed, one wounded and 10 arrested. Palestinian sources said 10 were killed and 20 were arrested.

The IDF said among those killed or arrested in Beit Rima were members of the Fatah Armed Wing, Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The PFLP claimed responsibility for the assassination of Ze'evi last Wednesday.

Mustafa Barghouti, president of the Palestinian Medical Relief, offered a different picture to CNN.

"I believe what happened is a massacre in every sense of the word because the Israeli army attacked this village," Barghouti said. "There was no fight whatsoever."

He said his medical teams were not allowed to get close to the injured and two doctors who live in the village were also kept away.

Sharon told the Knesset the operation resulted in "important arrests" of key members of terrorist groups.

The prime minister's office said the Israeli General Security Service recently arrested two men it believes were connected to Ze'evi's killing. They were identified as Salah Alawi from East Jerusalem and Mohammad Fahami Rimawi from Beit Rima.

The security service alleges Alawi assisted the members of the cell that killed Ze'evi and that Rimawi was the man who drove the getaway car.

During interrogation the men identified Hamdi Hamed Qoran of al-Bire as the leader of the cell and that he told them he was the triggerman who shot Ze'evi, the security service said. Qoran remains at large.

Mohammed Dahlan, head of the Palestinian Preventive Security Service in Gaza, charged Israel with delaying the release of names and details in order to "cover up" what he called "massacres" in Beit Rima.

He said news of the arrests, which were made days ago, was intended to "make it seem as if the arrests came as a result of the barbaric attack and to justify the massacre that was committed against the civilians in Beit Rima and portraying it as if it is an intelligence success."

The Israeli Security Cabinet was slated to meet Thursday after the return of Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who has been on a trip to Washington. Israel Radio quoted officials as saying a troop withdrawal is anticipated but not before Friday.

Last week in response to Ze'evi's killing, Israeli troops and tanks moved into Palestinian areas around Beit Jala, Bethlehem, Qalqilya, Jenin, Nablus and Ramallah.

Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Israel does not intend to stay in the Palestinian territories and does not intend to topple the Palestinian Authority.

In other developments, Jewish settlers fired on a car filled with six Palestinians who were on their way to work from Yatta, the Palestine Red Crescent Society and Palestinian security sources told CNN. All six were wounded, two of them critically in the head.

In addition, three Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces at Tulkarem in the West Bank Tuesday, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

The governor of Tulkarem said the Israeli army set up an ambush near a cemetery and killed three Palestinians from the Popular Resistance movement who were on night patrol.

The IDF said its troops fired a tank round after its troops were fired on by Palestinians. The IDF also said it destroyed the house of a Fatah leader in Tulkarem who was responsible for the murders of two Tel Aviv restaurant owners in January.

In Bethlehem, Issa Abu Ali, a 53-year-old Palestinian, was killed when he was hit in the head with a 50-caliber machine gun bullet, Palestinian security officials said.