CAIRO (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Images of war echoed in the cities of Gaza and the West Bank earlier today as Israeli helicopter gunships launched rockets at the Palestinian Authority's headquarters, police stations and TV broadcasting station.

The gunships launched several waves of attacks on the police station itself, as well as on the offices of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah and his headquarters in Gaza.

The attack followed the killing of Israeli soldiers - claimed by the Israelis to be off-duty reservists and by Palestinians as undercover agents - detained in the city of Ramallah and taken to a Palestinian police station.

Reports from the Occupied Territories gave conflicting accounts as to the number of soldiers killed believed to be killed. Some reports indicate two, other reports say three.

Agitated Palestinian protestors, who poured into the police station as soon as the news of their capture spread to city streets, killed the soldiers.

It is not clear what the soldiers were doing in Ramallah. Israel claims they were unarmed reservists who had taken a wrong turn; but Palestinian reports from the Addameer human rights organization, based in the city, said they were believed to be planting explosives.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak warned, "We will know what to do," after the soldiers' bloodied bodies were dumped on the street, shattering tentative steps toward negotiating a truce.

Israeli rockets also struck the Palestinian TV station. Observers speculate the reason why the television station was targeted was because it had been continuously broadcasting footage of Palestinians being attacked by Israeli forces.

The Israeli newspaper Ha'artez states that Israeli officials have said the broadcasts were inflammatory.

People ran for cover as huge explosions rocked the town with half a dozen Israeli helicopter gunships circling in the skies overhead.

There are reports of tanks and troops being massed near Ramallah and Israelis living in settlements near the town have been told to go down into their bomb shelters.

A leader of the PLO Fatah faction, Marwan Barghouthi, told Reuters: "This is a declaration of war. They are out to kill."

Only hours earlier, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said "he received assurances" that Israeli and Palestinian security officials planned to meet together with their U.S. counterparts to discuss the current unrest. However, after the events in Ramallah, it was not clear whether Israel would attend.

Annan was in Lebanon as events in Ramallah took place. He was negotiating the release of the three Israeli soldiers taken hostages by the Hezbollah militia in Southern Lebanon.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called for an immediate pause in the Israeli army action. She also urged Arafat "to take the steps necessary to bring this senseless and destructive cycle of fighting to an end".

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