Israeli troops backed by tanks, attack helicopters and bulldozers raided a Palestinian refugee camp early yesterday, exchanging fire with gunmen that killed at least four people, witnesses said. Two others died in the West Bank.

　　Soldiers entered the refugee camp near Rafah on the Gaza-Egyptian border. The army said Palestinian gunmen shot at soldiers, and an Apache helicopter fired back, killing at least one Palestinian. Three others died in exchanges of fire, and seven were wounded in the clashes, doctors and witnesses said.

　　The army said the raid was meant to uncover weapons-smuggling tunnels under the Egyptian-Gaza border, and that four houses were demolished. No tunnels were discovered but four soldiers were wounded when a bomb went off under a tank.

　　In the West Bank city of Nablus, Israeli troops shot and killed a leader of the militant Hamassgroupsduring an early morning raid, the army said.

　　Khaled Rayyan, 28, was hiding in a relative's house with his wife and child when soldiers broke down the door, said his wife, Salam Rayyan. Rayyan was killed when he tried to attack the troops with a pistol, she said.

　　In the West Bank town of Qalqiliya, Israeli troops searching for Palesti-nian militants late on Wednesday night shot and killed a 14-year-old Palestinian when he opened his door to look at troops outside, witnesses said. The army said the youth tried to run away from troops, and was shot after he ignored calls to stop.

　　In the nearby town of Tulkarem, Israeli forces demolished the home of a Palestinian suicide bomber who blew himself up in the coastal city of Netanya almost two years ago.

　　The tandem military operations came as Mahmoud Abbas, the recently named Palestinian prime minister, met with political leaders in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday to discuss the formation of his new Cabinet, expected later this month.

　　Abbas, who is widely known as Abu Mazen, also met recently with leaders of Islamic militant groups in Gaza, in an effort to persuade them to end, at least for a period, attacks against Israelis.

　　Israel has said a US-backed "road map" for Palestinian statehood cannot move forward as long as attacks persist. US President George W. Bush said the road map will be formally presented as soon as Abbas and his Cabinet are officially confirmed.

　　Meanwhile, there were other signals of a possible thaw in Israeli-Palestinian relations, which have been devastated by 30 months of deadly violence and bitter recrimination.

　　Israeli security officials met for the first time in months with Palestinian security officials, according to Ribhi Arafat, a Palestinian commander.

　　Two meetings took place last Tuesday and Thursday, in Israel near the Gaza border, he said.

　　The Palestinians asked for Israel's eventual withdrawal from the West Bank, while the Israelis asked for an end to attacks, Arafat said.

　　Over the past year efforts to return occupied areas to the control of the Palestinian Authority fell apart when they were subsequently used by militants to regroup and launch attacks on Israel.

　　Under interim peace accords, the Palestinian Authority is supposed to control about 40 percent of the West Bank, but in a series of incursions that followed suicide bomb attacks, the Israeli military has gradually retaken most of the areas.