OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 12 August — Armed Jewish settlers yesterday seized two Palestinian houses in a village close to a southern West Bank settlement where two Israelis were shot dead last week. The settlers, numbering around 100, forced out the families in the two houses on the edge of Luban Al-Sharqiyah. The village lies just west of Eli settlement.

The seizure came as President Yasser Arafat hailed security talks in Washington as "very positive," but in the Palestinian territories the violence showed no sign of a letup, prompting Pope John-Paul II to voice a biting condemnation of the unrest.

Arafat said the Palestinian delegation, which has held three days of talks with US Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and CIA Director George Tenet had conducted a "very positive" visit.

Arafat said he hoped to see concrete changes soon. "The talks were very positive and very important and there will be results on the ground very soon," he told reporters.

But in the Gaza Strip another Palestinian was killed after firing on Israelis in a Jewish settlement in the north of the territory, in what the army said was a bid to lure one of its tanks to destruction. A Hamas activist opened fire on a group of land surveyors working on the edge of the Dugit settlement, injuring one man. When Israeli forces gave chase, they discovered a powerful armor-piercing explosive device similar to those that have destroyed two battle tanks this year in similar strikes designed to draw the Israeli armor into a trap. The Hamas fighter was later killed by Israeli troops.

Earlier in the day, a Palestinian civilian was shot and wounded by Israeli troops in a village on the edge of East Jerusalem. The soldiers demanded to examine his bag. It was later discovered that the bag contained groceries. Two Israeli soldiers were injured in a firefight that erupted as their unit entered the northern West Bank town of Jenin.

Pope John Paul II issued his most forceful condemnation yet of the conflict in the Middle East and urged the international community to do more to end the bloodshed. "When will one learn that co-existence between the Israeli and Palestinian people cannot result from arms. Neither attacks, nor the walls of separation, nor retaliation, will lead to a just solution to the conflict," he said in an address to Christians at his summer residence near Rome.