OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 16 February — Israeli warplanes carried out a raid on the Jabalia refugee camp for Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip, killing one person and wounding 25 others, Palestinian security officials said. One Palestinian was shot dead by troops earlier in the day.

Abdel-Salam Yunis was found dead under the rubble of the Palestinian public security headquarters in the area destroyed by the raid, according to the same sources. Israeli planes fired three rockets.

Among those wounded in the Israeli strike are civilians and members of the Palestinian security forces, Palestinian medical sources said.

Moaweyah Abu Hassanein, chief of emergency at Shifa Hospital in Gaza said the hospital received one slain Palestinian public security officer and 25 injured.

Witnesses said nurses and firefighters were trying to remove the body of another killed public security officer from underneath the rubble of the destroyed building.

The witnesses said the F-16 flew over Gaza for about 10 minutes before starting to fire rockets at the building, adding that three big explosions were heard in the area.

They said ambulances and firefighters arrived at the scene to battle the flames.

The Israeli Army suffered a second major blow yesterday with the death of the leader of an elite unit in the West Bank, where it had killed a Palestinian activist, less than 24 hours after the loss of three members of an Israeli tank crew in the northern Gaza Strip.

Lt. Col. Eyal Weiss, 34, was killed during a raid on a Palestinian village yesterday. Israeli sources said he was killed when the wall of a home that had been demolished earlier collapsed.

But Islamic Jihad said in a statement the incident was a “new defeat for the Zionist enemy.”

“The Mujahideen challenged them with a hail of gunfire and hand grenades, and during the clash a leader of a special Zionist unit, the Duvdevan, was killed...” it said.

Israeli troops carried out a series of incursions in the Gaza Strip yesterday, particularly in the north of the Palestinian territory, where it destroyed houses and farmland.

Earlier, Israeli tanks knocked down buildings as troops swept into two Palestinian villages in the northern West Bank.

In Paris, France and Russia yesterday urged Israel to restore the freedom of movement to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. In a joint declaration issued in Paris, French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine and his Russian counterpart, Igor Ivanov, called on Tel Aviv “to lift its blockades as well as all restrictions imposed on the Palestinian people and the representatives of the Palestinian Authority”.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer visiting the region called escalating violence in the region “alarming”. “Terrorism must be stopped and both sides must return to the negotiation table,” he told reporters after meeting with his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres in Tel Aviv.

In Ramallah, hundreds of angry Palestinians hurled stones at the offices of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, demanding an end to “repression” and the release of prisoners, an AFP photographer witnessed. The demonstrators, saying they belonged to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), were kept back by a cordon of riot police in full gear.

They were shouting “free our prisoners,” “the Palestinian Authority imprisons us” and “stop the repression.”

Helmeted Palestinian anti-riot police, armed with shields and truncheons, formed a cordon around the offices of the Palestinian leader.