JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli forces completed their pullout from Jenin city and refugee camp early Friday, a day after a U.N. envoy toured the camp and described the scene as "horrifying."

Israeli forces briefly entered the West Bank town of Qalqilya overnight Thursday for operational purposes, Israeli military sources said. They carried out a number of arrests before leaving.

Operations were also carried out in Gaza, which has escaped largely unscathed during the last three weeks as Israel has focused its operations on the West Bank.

Israeli tanks and troops entered a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Gaza early Friday after its forces came under a grenade attack by Palestinians, the Israeli army said.

One Palestinian was killed in the fighting. Israel Defense Forces opened fire on a number of armed Palestinians moving toward the Gaza settlement of Netzarim. While searching the area, the soldiers found two bodies of Palestinians dressed in Israeli army uniforms with Kalashnikov rifles.

The Israeli army says it has no plans to remain in Gaza and that its forces were just acting after being fired upon. The Israeli army said its forces were on a "routine" mission when they came under fire.

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A United Nations special envoy to the Middle East, Terje Roed-Larsen, visited the Jenin refugee camp on the West Bank Thursday, and described the scene as "shocking and horrifying beyond belief," the air filled with the smell of decaying bodies.

Peter Hansen, the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), said: "I had, first of all, hoped the horror stories coming out were exaggerations as you often hear in this part of the world, but they were only all too true." (Inside Jenin)

Larsen had gone into the camp with representatives of the Palestine Red Crescent and the U.N. relief agency UNRWA.

"What we are seeing here is the large-scale suffering of the whole civilian population here. No military operation could justify the suffering we are seeing here," he said. "It's not only the corpses, children lacking food."

Larsen called on the Israelis to give fuller access to the camp to aid agencies distributing food and water to the residents.

There have been anecdotal accounts about the number of deaths in the camp, but no clear picture has emerged. Palestinians have charged that as many as 500 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli incursions in the West Bank. Israeli Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said fighting at the camp was fierce but said the number of deaths was in the "dozens not hundreds."

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered incursions into the West Bank to root out what he called the Palestinians' "terrorist infrastructure." The Palestinians call the campaign that began March 29 an Israeli reoccupation of the West Bank.

In Washington, President Bush, meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell about his trip to the region, praised the Israeli withdrawals but said they must continue. He cited "progress" from Secretary of State Colin Powell's recent mission to the Middle East, dispite the fact that no cease-fire was secured. (Full story)

Other developments:

  • A key leader of the military wing of Hamas in Bethlehem was arrested early Friday by Israeli forces, Palestinian security officials said. The man, Sheikh Khaled Tafesh, is considered the leader of the Izzedin al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, in Bethlehem.
  • Israeli forces arrested a man Thursday they said was a top official in the military wing of Hamas and responsible for a series of deadly terror attacks against Israeli civilians in recent years, including last month's Passover bombing in Netanya. Both the Israel Defense Forces and Palestinian security forces said the captured man, identified as Hossam Atef Ali Badram, was the head of the military wing of Hamas, Izzedine al Qassam. (Full story)
  • An explosion went off near a car outside the Gaza settlement of Gush Khatif Friday morning, the Israeli Army said. They believe a person inside the vehicle was killed. Settlers in Gush Khatif said the explosion was a car bomb and it did not injure any residents. The Israeli Army was not clear if the person inside the car was responsible for the explosion, which happened around 10 a.m. (3 a.m. EDT). It was also not clear if the bomb exploded prematurely, while in the person's possession.