Palestinian youths hurl stones at an Israeli army jeep in Ramallah (AFP)

Additional Reporting By Suliman Besharat, IOL Correspondent

RAMALLAH, West Bank, December 1 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – While stepped up diplomatic efforts between Palestinians and Israelis intensified, four Palestinians were killed earlier Monday, December 1, in a fresh Israeli incursion into the West Bank city of Ramallah during daylight hours.

Nael al-Nakhla, a Ramallah resident, told IslamOnline.net that Israeli troops further rounded up many Palestinians at Al-Amari refugee camp.

He added that the troops sealed off the area and imposed a curfew, preventing ambulances to reach the bodies of the dead.

The Israeli clampdown came as Palestinian and Israeli delegations were in Geneva Monday to take part in an unveiling ceremony for an unofficial peace accord for the Middle East.

The Israeli radio claimed that the "operation" was targeting activists from the resistance group of Hamas.

Israeli army sources also said some 30 people were arrested during the operation aimed at smashing what the sources described as “Hamas cells".

The latest deaths bring the overall toll since the start of the Palestinian Intifada in September 2000 to 3,628, including 2,708 Palestinians and 854 Israelis.

Witnesses further told IOL that Israeli bulldozers reduced to rubble the house of Wagih al-Keswani without notice.

Israeli troops made house-to-house searches and arrested a number of Palestinian youths and elderly people, including Sheikh Fadl Hamdan, Maher al-Shafai and Mohammed Khedr.

Add to that, Israeli troops dynamited the office of Fatah movement in the troubled city after they had tampered with documents and dossiers.

Separately, Israeli troops stormed the city of Al-Khalil (Hebron) and bulldozed flat the house of Ahmad Badr, a leader of Hamas' military wing Ezzedine al-Qassem Brigades, who was killed by Israeli troops two months ago.

In Jenin, a number of Israeli troops continued their incursions, paralyzing the public life in the West Bank city.

"We are living under appalling conditions here, pure and simple," Ahmad Abu Zeid told IOL.

"We are having acute shortages in food stuffs because Israeli forces deny aid vehicles access to us."

Meanwhile, Palestinian security sources told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that a man suspected of collaborating with Israel was killed overnight by members of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of Fatah, in the northern West Bank.

Fayez Mikbel, 38, was found dead after being shot in the village of Maythalun, south of Jenin.

On the political landscape, Israeli and Palestinian delegations headed Monday to Geneva, Switzerland, to take part in the unveiling ceremony for an unofficial peace accord for the Middle east in lieu of the U.S.-backed 'roadmap.'

Around 400 Palestinian figures and left-wing Israelis are expected to attend the ceremony, which is also expected to be attended by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and Nobel Peace Prize winners John Hume of Northern Ireland and Poland's Lech Walesa.

The driving force behind the initiative, former Israeli justice minister Yossi Beilin and former Palestinian information minister Yasser Abd Rabu.