By Muin Shadid

TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) - The Israeli army swept into Tulkarm refugee camp in the West Bank early on Tuesday following a Palestinian militant attack on a kibbutz that killed five Israelis, witnesses said.

Israeli security sources had said hours before that Israel had decided on military action in the Tulkarm and Nablus areas of the West Bank because they were suspected of links to Sunday night's assault on the collective farm community inside Israel.

Military retaliation for the attack by a lone gunman, who killed the collective farm community's administrator, two women and two small children before escaping, was likely to complicate a new U.S. peace mission that began on Monday.

Palestinian witnesses and security sources said around 30 tanks, armored troop carriers and jeeps stormed into Tulkarm's camp around 3 a.m. (8 p.m. EST) and fanned through the streets.

They reported heavy gunfire from Israeli troops but no immediate resistance from Palestinian militants, who have waging an uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (news - web sites) since September 2000.

The Israeli army had no immediate comment.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) and new Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, visited the kibbutz, close to the West Bank boundary with Israel and just north of Tulkarm, on Monday evening and discussed a "measured" military response to the attack.

Israeli security sources said afterward Sharon and Mofaz had opted for military action "in the coming hours" in Nablus, from which the gunman was believed to have come, and Tulkarm, the Palestinian city closest to the attack site.

In the Gaza Strip's Rafah refugee camp on Monday night, a two-year-old Palestinian child was shot dead in the arms of his father by what witnesses called unprovoked gunfire into the neighborhood from an Israeli army watchtower, medics said.

An army spokesman said Israeli troops had responded to shots fired at them. "This is a very hot area," he said, referring to past clashes with Palestinian militants in Rafah.

CHILDREN SHOT DEAD IN BED

The gunman slipped overnight into Kibbutz Metzer and opened fire, killing a woman visitor and its administrator in what was a rare raid on an Israeli collective farm.

The militant burst into a house, gunning down a 34-year-old mother in the doorway of her children's room and killing two sons aged four and five as they held bedding over their heads.

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Fatah (news - web sites), claimed responsibility. It said it was avenging Israel's killing of an Islamic militant commander and vowed "more martyrdom attacks until occupation leaves our land." [Remainder is rehash]

-- Anonymous, November 11, 2002