TULKARM - Israeli tanks and troops took over Tulkarm in the West Bank on Monday, killing one Palestinian, in the deepest incursion into a Palestinian-ruled city during 16 months of bloodshed.

The Israeli raid, which was met by sporadic resistance from Palestinian gunmen in the city, was launched in reprisal for a deadly Palestinian attack in northern Israel and signalled a further setback to U.S. peace efforts.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat condemned the Israeli move, saying it "crossed all red lines".

"This is a very dangerous thing. This is an implementation of the Israeli plan of aggression on the Palestinian National Authority," he told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where he has been confined by Israeli forces since last month.

Witnesses said Israeli tanks occupied positions throughout Tulkarm in the northern West Bank, a move the army said was in response to a shooting rampage in which six people were killed last Thursday during a Jewish coming-of-age party.

The army said the gunman who carried out Thursday's shooting rampage in northern Israel was from Tulkarm.

Some Palestinians defied the Israeli-imposed curfew and Palestinian gunmen in eastern Tulkarm fired at troops, witnesses said. Medical sources said a 19-year-old civilian was shot in the head and four people were wounded, including policemen.

"The Israeli army entered Tulkarm from all sides and started to take over houses and imposed checkpoints inside the town," said Izz al-Din al-Sharif, governor of Tulkarm.

Several dozen tanks swept in before dawn while soldiers searched houses and detained several people, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said.

"When Israel has completed its mission it will be able to withdraw to its previous positions," said Dore Gold, Israeli government spokesman.

The army said it entered Tulkarm to strike at a "large terror infrastructure" and that it would stay for a limited period until the "search and arrest of terrorists is complete".

But Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said the incursion showed Israel planned to reoccupy in stages all areas turned over to Palestinian control in recent years under interim peace accords.

"The international community must move to stop this state terrorism which Israel is practising," he said in a statement.

Israel has made frequent incursions into Palestinian-ruled territory, sometimes lasting for weeks at a time, during the Palestinian uprising against occupation, but has never before established military control over an entire city.

Israeli officials have said their actions were aimed at seizing militants behind attacks on Israelis, but Palestinians have accused Israel of trying to topple Arafat.

Tulkarm has been a focal point of the renewed violence in the past week since Raed al-Karmi, a Palestinian militant accused by Israel officials of mounting deadly attacks, was killed in a bomb blast blamed on Israel.

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group linked to Arafat's Fatah faction, said it carried out the shooting spree in the Israeli city of Hadera to avenge Karmi's death.

At the start of a two-day visit to Israel on Sunday, former U.S. president Bill Clinton called the 16 months of violence a "terrible mistake".

"We need a process that will stop the violence and terror," Clinton told an audience at Tel Aviv University.

Clinton's aim of overseeing a final peace treaty collapsed in July 2000 during marathon negotiations held at Camp David between Arafat and then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

The uprising erupted in September 2000 and has raged ever since, killing at least 810 Palestinians and 246 Israelis.

Arafat declared a ceasefire on December 16 under intense international pressure, but that attempt to end the fighting has given way to a fresh cycle of death and retribution. Nampa-Reuters