TEL AVIV Ñ The United States has warned Israel against targeting a Palestinian security chief.

The Bush administration has relayed to Israel a message that expressed Washington's dismay over an Israeli shelling of the home of Palestinian Authority security chief Col. Jibril Rajoub. Rajoub heads the Preventive Security Apparatus in the West Bank and is regarded as the PA security official most closely aligned with the United States.

Rajoub's 2,000-member force has generally avoided participation in the Israeli-Palestinian war. U.S. officials said an Israeli attack on Rajoub's home could change that.

"Those who would stop the violence, Palestinian police or the head of the Palestinian security organization in the West Bank, Jibril Rajoub, are being hit, bombed, shelled, killed by the Israeli defense forces," U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk said. "Maybe the strategy is to encourage them to act against their own people. But I don't imagine that there is an example in history where such a strategy has succeeded."

Israeli military officers said tanks shelled Rajoub's home on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Ramallah on late Sunday after an Israeli soldier was shot and wounded by a Palestinian sniper. The officers said Palestinians have used Rajoub's home to launch attacks on Israeli outposts and motorists.

Officials said U.S. allies in the Middle East have urged Washington to stop what they term the escalation in Israeli attacks on the Palestinians. They said the appeal has been led by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.

In New York, a panel led by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell urged Israel to end all settlement construction and end Palestinian attacks from populated areas. The Mitchell panel called on Israel to stop the demolition of Palestinian buildings and fields used by combatants.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and discussed the Mitchell recommendations. Powell said he plans to send State Department Middle East chief William Burns as his envoy to the region.

Powell called for a ceasefire and a timetable for implementation of the Mitchell report. He said he would send William Burns, ambassador to Jordan and nominated to head the State Department's Near Eastern affairs bureau, to join Indyk and U.S. consul-general in Jerusalem Ron Schlicher to resume discussions with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

"At the end of the day negotiations must start again," Powell said. "But negotiations cannot start in this current situation of intense violence and a total lack of confidence and trust between the two parties."

Indyk and Schliecher met Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on late Monday in Jerusalem. On Tuesday, the two U.S. diplomats are scheduled to meet PA Chairman Yasser Arafat in Gaza.

Overnight Tuesday, Israeli and Palestinian forces clashed along the southern approaches of Jerusalem. Five Israelis were injured by Palestinian fire in the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. Israeli tanks responded with shell fire toward the Bethlehem-area suburbs of Bet Jallah and El Khader.

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