JEDDAH/OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 18 May — Yasser Arafat yesterday ruled out elections as long as Israeli troops occupied Palestinian areas after the army staged raids across the West Bank. Palestinian Cabinet Minister Nabil Shaath later said “the president meant (no elections) until Israel pulls out its occupation forces to where they had been before Sept. 29, 2000” — the date the current uprising erupted.

The United States reacted coolly. Reform should proceed without conditions, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said. “Reform of the Palestinian Authority should be done because it’s the right thing to give hope to the Palestinian people,” Fleischer told reporters. “It should not be contingent on any other matters. It’s the right thing to do in any case.”

Arafat’s condition met with a muted response from some Palestinians who have urged new elections and reforms within the Palestinian Authority, even though the linkage to an Israeli withdrawal could amount to a significant delay for a vote.

Meanwhile, the head of the political office of the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, said yesterday that his organization had not received any request from Saudi Arabia to stop its operations against Israel.

Speaking to Arab News, he denied the report that Hamas had told the Kingdom that it was willing to stop bombings on Israeli territory.

“There has been no contact between Riyadh and Hamas for several months,” he said, adding that no Hamas leader had visited the Kingdom for quite a long time.

The Hamas official accused certain parties within the Palestinian Authority of spreading the news to create confusion within the Palestinian ranks.

“These parties aim at involving the Kingdom in a matter which has never taken place and they wanted to show that there is special relation between the Kingdom and Hamas,” he said, adding that it was part of a campaign led by the Israeli press and officials.

“The Kingdom has announced that it wanted the occupation to end. We praise this stand which is in line with the desire of the Palestinian people and all Arab countries,” he added.

Israeli forces pushed into the battle-scarred Jenin refugee camp yesterday, returning to the scene of a massacre of Palestinians, and a second camp near Nablus. Two Palestinian boys were killed in the raids.

In the Gaza Strip, soldiers shot dead a Palestinian near the Jewish settlement of Dugit. A group linked to Arafat’s Fatah faction identified the man as a member.