TEL AVIV Ñ Israel's military faces a severe shortage of manpower in the West Bank.

Military sources said the army has been unable to man roadblocks and posts throughout the area. They said Jewish settlements have been left with either few or no soldiers for protection.

"The issue is so serious that the chief of staff has intervened," a military source said. "But even he is limited in what he can do."

The sources cited a mishap in planning for the manpower shortage. They said the Ground Forces Command ordered many of the soldiers out of the West Bank for infantry and armored training.

Training has been hampered by the Israeli-Palestinian war, which began in September 2000. Exercises have been cancelled or delayed and senior commanders have warned of a sharp drop in combat ability by young soldiers and reservists. In some cases, the sources said, reservists were sent to the West Bank without shooting their weapons at a firing range.

The sources said the military has tried to compensate for the manpower shortage by drafting reservists in their mid-40s for combat duty in the West Bank. Otherwise, they said, many military outposts have been simply abandoned.

The shortage, the sources said, does not affect commando missions in the West Bank. On Wednesday, an elite naval unit captured a Palestinian termed a leading Hamas commander.

Overnight Thursday, a combined force of military troops and border police raided Palestinian Authority offices in the Azariya suburb of Jerusalem. The force sealed the offices of PA security agencies operating in the suburb.

Four Palestinian children were killed and one seriously injured in an explosion on Thursday in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. The children, aged between six and 14 and all related, were playing with a part of a mortar bomb in the schoolyard when it exploded. The area is used by Palestinian gunmen to fire mortars at the nearby Jewish settlements of Gush Katif. Earlier, Israeli troops defused a large road side bomb in Gush Katif.

Palestinian officials said Israel is responsible for the deaths of the children. They said Israeli troops have been firing tank shells into the area. Israeli military officials have denied that Israeli troops fired into the Khan Yunis schoolyard.

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