Israel to keep targeting militants: Sharon

At first, Palestinian security officials said Israeli tanks fired shells late Sunday at a group of militants from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, affiliated with the mainstream Fatah, killing three men and wounding four others in the town of Beit Hanoun. Another died later in a hospital, doctors said.

However, loudspeaker trucks later drove through the area saying that the four died while "fulfilling their national duty," a phrase used in the past to announce accidental deaths. Israeli military sources said on condition of anonymity that the militants were on their way to plant a bomb and it went off prematurely.

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In Jordan, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday the killing of a Hamas leader by Israeli troops could impede fulfillment of the US-backed "road map" to peace.

Powell said the peace process must continue, despite the shooting Saturday of Abdullah Kawasme, 43, a leader of the Hamas militant group in the West Bank town of Hebron.

Powell met with diplomats from the other three members of the Quartet of Mideast mediators - the European Union, United Nations and Russia - to try to rescue the plan.

After the meeting, the Quartet members, in a strongly worded statement, said they "deplore and condemn the brutal terror attacks against Israeli citizens carried out... since the road map's presentation," including a suicide bombing in Jerusalem on June 11 that killed 17 and Friday's gunfire attack on a car in the West Bank, killing a dual US-Israeli citizen.