Jerusalem ? Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon convened top Cabinet ministers Wednesday after six Israelis were killed in Palestinian attacks, but government officials said they did not expect a dramatic change in Israel’s response brief pinpoint incursions into West Bank towns.

Before daybreak Thursday, Israeli troops entered the West Bank city of Hebron from three directions, Palestinian security officials said.

The officials said the Israeli operation appeared aimed at making arrests, and did not look like an attempt to gain control of the whole city. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

On Wednesday, the Israelis staged a quick raid on Beitunia, a suburb of Ramallah and were holding Bethlehem and surrounding villages and refugee camps for a fourth day, keeping residents in their homes as they searched for militants, explosives and weapons.

In Beit Sahour, next to Bethlehem, soldiers detained a woman who was “on her way to carry out a suicide bombing attack,” the military said, identifying her as 20-year-old Arin Ahmed. Israel Radio said she planned to bomb the Israeli city of Rishon Letzion last week but changed her mind at the last moment. On May 22, a 16-year-old Palestinian blew himself up in Rishon Letzion, killing himself and two Israelis.

Lt. Col. Moshe Mada, an Israeli army commander in the region, indicated that the army’s stay was not about to end. “As long as we think that we haven’t destroyed the terror infrastructure, we will stay there,” he told The Associated Press. “We haven’t finished yet.”

The Palestinian leadership issued a statement denouncing the Israeli incursions, which take place almost nightly. The statement, distributed by the Palestinian news agency Wafa, charged that Israeli forces are “continuing their aggression … practicing random arrests and humiliating the citizens and firing on residential areas, killing and wounding many civilians.”

Near Nablus, soldiers shot and killed an unarmed Palestinian. The military said soldiers thought he was holding a weapon and ordered him to stop, but he fled and was killed when soldiers fired at him. The implement he was holding was a farm tool, the military said.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said the security cabinet, composed of senior ministers, agreed on military steps. He did not elaborate, but Raanan Gissin, a Sharon adviser, said Israel would pursue “the same policies,” but “if there is an escalation, we, too, will escalate the use of our means to defend the lives of our citizens.”