JERUSALEM'A lone Palestinian gunman slipped inside a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip late Thursday night, killing at least four Israelis and wounding 13 others on a day of violence that seemed to bring Israelis and Palestinians to the brink of all-out war.
Israel pressed on with its campaign to break Palestinian militias and shake the foundations of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, attacking towns, refugee camps and security positions. Sixteen Palestinians were reportedly killed.
Palestinians continued their revenge attacks, with one suicide bomber blowing himself up in the lobby of a hotel on the edge of the West Bank's second-largest Jewish settlement, injuring 10 people, and another being overpowered by the staff at a trendy Jerusalem restaurant before he could detonate a large bomb.
The deadliest attack on Israelis came at the settlement of Atzmona, where a gunman later identified by Palestinians as Mohammed Farahat, 19, of the militant Islamic movement Hamas opened fire at a pre-military training academy for Israeli youth.
Israel Radio reported that he fired his gun and threw grenades for about 15 minutes before a squad of soldiers shot him to death.
Israel immediately retaliated, unleashing airstrikes on the biblical West Bank town of Bethlehem and in the northern Gaza Strip, where missiles were fired at Palestinian security targets. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The government launched its current offensive on Monday, after a string of deadly Palestinian attacks on Israelis over the weekend. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed to \beat"" the Palestinians until Israel breaks the militias producing a seemingly endless stream of suicide bombers and gunmen.
Israeli troops Thursday took control of the West Bank town of Tulkarm and two refugee camps on its outskirts. The army has branded the area a hotbed of terrorism. Gun battles raged into the night there, and there were reports that scores of Palestinian gunmen were trapped in one camp as Israeli soldiers advanced.
Palestinians reported that 11 people, including two ambulance workers, were killed in the fighting. Five of the dead were gunmen, according to Palestinians. Four more Palestinians were reportedly killed late Thursday night.
The Israeli army's operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will continue ""as long as it takes,"" according to Israeli spokesperson Avi Pazner.
