OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 18 November — Israel poured cold water yesterday on an impending Middle East peace mission by senior officials from the European Union (EU), saying the EU was "pro-Arab and anti-Israel".

"The European Union cannot hope to play a more active role in the negotiations because of its unbalanced positions, its pro-Arab and anti-Israeli tendencies," a senior official from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s office told AFP.

"The EU turns a blind eye to Palestinian terrorism and just condemns Israel every time we act to defend ourselves," said the official, who requested he not be named.

The EU "cannot in these conditions play the role of honest broker and must be satisfied with a role limited to making investments in the Palestinian territories," he added.

EU leaders headed by Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt started a three-day Middle East tour in Cairo yesterday with the hope of leading Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table.

Verhofstadt said Israel and the Palestinians must be pressed to start implementing a truce-to-talks plan.

"During the last 12 days, there has certainly been less violence ... There is now a need to relaunch the peace process," he said," following a meeting with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Verhofstadt, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU, stressed that there was "a general international agreement on the fact that if you want a solution to the conflict in the Middle East, we have to create a Palestinian state."

For his part, Arafat said: "We will make all the efforts to sustain and maintain the cease-fire."

Arafat called for Europe’s "support in ending the siege around our people, ending the continued expropriation of our territories and continued assassinations." The delegation arrived in Ramallah earlier after first visiting Cairo.

Verhofstadt told reporters in Cairo that Egypt and the EU saw a "need to pressure both parties to sit around the same table" and begin "in the very near future" to put into motion recommendations of a panel led by former US Sen. George Mitchell.

The Belgian leader cited the "long-term need" for a Palestinian state and security for Israel.

In another development, Israeli soldiers failed to enter a hospital run by a Swedish church which provides services for Palestinians in occupied east Jerusalem, a hospital official said yesterday, contradicting a church statement.

"Soldiers and four armored vehicles attempted to enter the garden surrounding the hospital as well as the building itself to carry out searches, but the guards of the Augusta Victoria prevented them", Ahmad Halawe told AFP.

He said the vehicles then took up positions outside the Augusta Victoria Swedish Lutheran Hospital on the Mount of Olives.

A church spokesman in Stockholm said Friday that troops had managed to enter the hospital, adding, "This situation is unacceptable and bears witness to the increasingly desperate policies of an occupation power." Peter Wiederud told the Swedish agency TT that the intrusion, the first of its kind, fitted a "pattern of systematic arrogance," by the Israeli Army, calling it an "act of violence aimed at annihilating the Palestinians’ self-esteem."

"The Swedish Lutheran Church will file a complaint with the Israeli authorities over this intrusion by armed soldiers into the Augusta Victoria hospital," the spokesman said, adding that the soldiers, who were asked to leave, were still posted around the building.

The Israeli Army and its border guards, however, denied having tried to storm the hospital.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Army said yesterday it had withdrawn from the West Bank city of Tulkarm in the latest pullout from Palestinian areas seized last month after the assassination of an Israeli Cabinet minister.

But Palestinian security officials said Israeli soldiers just north of Tulkarm still remained inside reoccupied land.