RAMALLAH, West Bank, 3 April — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday Palestinian President Yasser Arafat could have only a “one-way ticket” to exile as troops invaded more West Bank towns and met fierce Palestinian resistance in Bethlehem.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Palestinian leader, who has sworn to “die a martyr” rather than bow to Israel, would never leave his homeland voluntarily.

Sharon said that Arafat would have to go alone if he left. He laid down three conditions in a press conference during a tour of army positions in the West Bank. “One, I have first to bring it to the Cabinet to be approved. Second, he cannot take anyone with him because there are wanted (men) and murderers surrounding him there. The third thing, it’s going to be a one-way ticket. He would not be able to return,” he said.

The Israeli premier had said Arafat could be accompanied by a European or other foreign envoy on leaving Ramallah, in an operation that could be carried out by helicopter.

“These comments confirm that Sharon still wants to kill President Arafat and Sharon knows perfectly well that President Arafat has stated he would neither be expelled nor killed but would die a martyr,” Erekat said.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell dismissed the idea that Arafat should be expelled, saying the Palestinian leader had an important role to play in the quest for Middle East peace.

Arafat and his supporters, trapped by Israeli forces in what remains of his Ramallah headquarters, have almost run out of food and are down to one potato each a day, Palestinian officials said.

In Amman, Fathi Arafat, brother of Yasser Arafat and honorary chairman of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, yesterday accused Israel of plotting the “mass killings” of besieged Palestinian people.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, over the rising tension in the Middle East, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported yesterday.

The two men discussed “the situation in the Palestinian territories in the light of the intensification of the savage aggression against the Palestinian people by the Israeli forces of occupation,” according to SPA.

European Union president Spain summoned Israeli ambassador to Madrid to demand that Israel quit Palestinian cities, in line with a UN Security Council resolution adopted on Saturday, and restore Arafat’s freedom of movement.

Ramallah’s central hospital has started burying corpses of people killed in Israel’s invasion in its grounds after the West Bank town’s morgue overflowed and they were unable to reach the cemetery, the hospital director said.

“We have found 28 bodies of people killed by Israelis so far. We are burying them in the garden and parking lot because the ambulances cannot take them out,” head of West Bank hospital services, said.

A State Department official said in Washington yesterday the United States has decided to allow the families of US diplomats in Jerusalem to leave Israel at government expense amid increased security fears raised by surging Middle East violence.

The heads of churches in Jerusalem urged US President George W. Bush and other world leaders to stop Israel’s military drive in the West Bank. In a letter they accused Israel of inflicting “wanton indiscriminate killings” and said many people were deprived of water, electricity, food supplies and basic medical needs.

In Bethlehem, Israeli forces yesterday killed three Palestinians and a teenage bystander in a shootout, Palestinian security sources said. The Israelis also shot dead another Palestinian man as he was driving his car in the town of Hebron to the south, the sources said.

Palestinians fought yesterday to keep Israeli troops out of Manger Square and witnesses reported fierce clashes near the Church of the Nativity.

The Russian Orthodox Church sent an angry message to Israel demanding an immediate withdrawal from a Russian church building it said Israeli troops had occupied in the Bethlehem battles.

Bethlehem’s main Omar Mosque caught fire late yesterday. A plume of smoke was seen around the minaret and roof of the building in Manger Square in the center of the city shortly after 6:00 p.m. (1500 GMT).

In another offensive, Israeli tanks and helicopter gunships blitzed the headquarters of a Palestinian security chief, Jibril Al-Rajoub, near Ramallah, setting buildings ablaze and causing an unknown number of casualties among the 400 people said to be inside. Palestinian forces later surrendered to Israeli troops besieging the headquarters Rajoub after running out of food and ammunition. Rajoub slipped out of his compound before Israeli troops and tanks encircled it.

Israeli forces later yesterday evacuated 180 of the people who they had trapped inside the building for five days

Israeli tanks pushed into the northern West Bank town of Jenin yesterday, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said. It was not immediately clear if the thrust was the prelude to a full-scale incursion into Jenin, where the sources said about 150 tanks and armored vehicles had gathered on the outskirts.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told army radio the West Bank incursions might last for weeks.

A Palestinian official said troops had shot dead a retarded man aged 42 near a checkpoint outside Bala’a, north of Tulkaram. Israel Army radio said two Palestinians had been found dead in a car near Tulkarm. The radio said police believed a Jewish underground group was behind the killings.

Arab foreign ministers will meet in Cairo today to discuss how to help the Palestinians and their leader Arafat handle their showdown with Israel, Palestinian International Cooperation Minister Nabil Shaath said.

In Cairo, Egyptian police clashed violently with student demonstrators for a second day yesterday, as people across the Arab world voiced more outrage at Israel’s military campaign against the Palestinians.