Israeli tanks storm Nablus in revenge for campus bombing Â

Israeli tanks and soldiers stormed the old city of Nablus yesterday, demolishing part of a school and rounding up and blindfolding men to be taken prisoner. Four Palestinians were reported to have been killed. Witnesses saw about 50 men being detained.

The Israeli government said the attack was in retaliation for the bombing of a student café at Jerusalem's Hebrew University on Wednesday that killed seven people, including five Americans. The militant Hamas had described the bombing as retaliation for Israel's air strike on its military leader in Gaza, which killed nine Palestinian children.

In a village near Nablus yesterday, witnesses said Israeli soldiers shot dead a Hamas militant who had surrendered and whose hands were bound. The army said he was shot while trying to escape. Witnesses said Israeli soldiers used a neighbour as a human shield.

Yesterday's incursion saw a repeat of some of the scenes from Israel's invasion of the West Bank in March and April. But while those earlier incursions culminated in some of the worst fighting of the intifada, Palestinian resistance was light yesterday. Although the army has been in control of Nablus for more than a month, soldiers have not ventured into the narrow streets of the old city since they encountered heavy resistance from Palestinian militants there in April.

That incursion was supposed to have broken up Palestinian militant cells operating from the old city, by capturing or killing their members. But the Israeli authorities said yesterday that a "new generation" of militants had sprung up, and that it had become "the main factory of suicide bombings against Israel". They said they believed the bomb at Hebrew University was made there. The army said it had found two bomb-making laboratories in the old city. But there will be accusations that the army attacked Nablus because it is the only town where Palestinians have dared to defy a 24-hour military curfew that has destroyed the Palestinian economy and made it impossible for Palestinians to work or send their children to school.

Tanks and soldiers moved into Nablus at around 2.30am local time. Soldiers smashed holes in the walls of houses so they could make progress without going into the streets. Unesco raised concerns after part of the historic old city was damaged in April.

The Hamas member shot dead in Salem, a nearby village, was named as Amjad Jabour. Halah Wadan, a neighbour, said that at about 2.45am, soldiers knocked on the house of another neighbour, Reda Ishtiya, and asked him to go to Mr Jabour and tell him to surrender. "Jabour left the house," Ms Wadan said by telephone. "They shackled him. I saw the Israeli soldiers surrounding him. I heard a lot of shooting in several directions. Then somebody was moaning ... When they left, my husband went there. He saw him in blood. There were several shots in his neck and one shot in his chest. He was shot from two metres away. It is an execution." The army said Mr Jabour was shot trying to escape.

Two relatives of alleged militants that Israel accuses of being behind attacks on civilians were ordered deported from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip yesterday, despite warnings from human rights groups that expulsions are a breach of the Geneva Conventions. The two men have appealed. There are reports the army plans to detain many more relatives for deportation. Israel says it is only deporting those linked to attacks, who, for instance, sheltered suicide bombers or knew about attacks in advance.

Israeli soldiers demolished four homes in the West Bank. In Nablus, two houses were destroyed, one belonging to the family of a suicide bomber who killed seven people in Jerusalem in June. In Hebron, relatives said 50 people were left homeless after the army destroyed the house of a gunman who shot dead two Israelis last year before being killed.

Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, said: "I am asking for quick international intervention from the United Nations. If they are not able to send forces, they should send observers."

The army said its operation in Nablus would continue for several days.