Seven killed in an escalation of Mid East violence

There have been more deaths in violence between the Palestinians and Israelis.

Five Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers have been killed in the Gaza Strip, taking the death toll in six days of violence to nearly 90.

Israel's army pushed into the town of Beit Lahia in northern Gaza after several rockets manufactured by Hamas militiamen for the first time injured Israeli civilians after hitting a home in the Israeli town of Sderot.

The fiercest fighting though, was further south near Khan Yunis where Israeli troops raided the town attempting to round up militants.

Three members of the family of a man marked for arrest, were killed.

Two Israeli soldiers were also killed.

Meanwhile, in Ramallah where Israeli helicopters fired a rocket a car carrying three leaders of the Palestinian Tanzim militia.

Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti has called for attacks on soldiers at every Israeli checkpoint.

Meanwhile, President George W Bush has vowed to redouble United States efforts to end violence in the Middle East.

He was speaking after talks in Washington with the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

But while Mr Bush said escalating violence in the region caused him great alarm, he offered no new concrete measures to help break the cycle.

"Each day brings fresh reports of more lives lost and more Palestinian and Israeli families shattered by those losses," he said.

"Both our countries view this situation with great alarm."

Shimon Peres

Israel's dovish foreign minister, Shimon Peres, said he will not pull out of the current coalition government, despite the increasingly hard-line policies of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Speaking to a meeting of the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem, Peres said he would only pull out of the government if he felt it no longer wanted peace.

"If I don't think my government serves peace, I will leave, the minute I think that is over, I will leave," he said.

"I'm not staying just to be in a government; I'm staying to build a different situation.

"We must work to achieve a ceasefire as soon as possible to open the way for a political solution.

"We're in an extremely grave situation; there has been too much blood, too many victims, too much desperation."

Powell

Earlier, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, called upon Israel to show the utmost restraint in defusing the heightened tensions in the region.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer says Israeli military actions in densely populated civilian areas can actually work against the overriding objective of reducing the violence.

"The president does believe that Prime Minister Sharon must take steps to ease the plight of the Palestinian people...including allowing them to rekindle economic opportunities for themselves and to provide a better future for the next generation of the Palestinians," he said.

The Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, has also held talks in Saudi Arabia with Crown Prince Abdullah and expressed his support for a Saudi proposal to end the conflict.

Crown Prince Abdullah proposed last month that Arab states should establish full ties with Israel, if the Jewish state leaves all Arab lands occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.