RAMALLAH, 24 September — Palestinian President Yasser Arafat yesterday rejected Israel’s terms for lifting its siege of his battered offices in the West Bank town of Ramallah as Washington and the world community increased pressure on the hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Arafat’s rejection of Israel’s demand for a list of names of 250 people holed up with him also came as the UN Security Council debated the crisis in New York and Greece announced a delegation from the four main diplomatic players was heading to the region in a bid to calm the crisis.

"We and President Arafat reject all Israeli conditions," chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told reporters after briefing the Palestinian leader about his earlier meeting with army officers at Israel’s Beit El base just outside this West Bank town. "The Israeli side asked us to take the names of the people in (the compound). We reject this (demand) from the Israeli side."

It was not only the first meeting between the two sides aimed at ending the four-day siege, but it was also the first time that Arafat had been allowed to receive colleagues from outside his shattered compound. "I saw the situation is very bad and very dangerous inside," Erekat complained in a phone conversation with AFP, referring to fears the building could collapse.

Arafat delivered a defiant speech by telephone yesterday to some 3,000 Palestinian students who gathered at Bethlehem University to demonstrate their support. "The situation is dangerous, but the people can face all dangers.

The Palestinian people has seen more dangerous situations than this and won," Arafat said from his besieged headquarters. Other signs of support for Arafat took shape as Palestinians in Gaza and Arab East Jerusalem shut up shop or skipped class in line with a strike call, while the 22-member Arab League in Cairo appealed for UN help.

A European Union official said the Palestinian leadership was refusing to give Israel the list it was demanding because it did not want a "second Bethlehem," referring to a deal to end a previous Israeli siege which sent Palestinian fighters into exile and Arafat’s popularity plunging.

In New York, UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan warned Israel yesterday that its battering away at the Palestinian Authority was "a bankrupt policy" that bolstered extremists and would never end Middle East violence. Addressing an emergency session of the Security Council, Annan also denounced Palestinian bombings as "morally repugnant" acts that ate away at hopes for a political solution in the Middle East.

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not going to be resolved by military might alone, or by violent means of any kind," Annan told the Council. "A policy based on forcing the other side to capitulate is a bankrupt policy. It is not working and it will never work. It only encourages desperation. It weakens moderates and strengthens extremists."

Washington, meanwhile, appeared to be toughening its stance as the Greek government announced that delegates from the United States as well as the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, were headed to the region yesterday. The United States had told Sharon directly that his siege of Arafat was "running contrary" to efforts to forge peace in the Middle East, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.