By Matt Spetalnick

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The afterglow of a U.S.-led Middle East summit have faded with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat saying Israel
has offered nothing "tangible" and hardliners on both sides vowing to oppose a road map to peace.

Just a day after the summit, Israeli forces on Thursday shot and killed two Palestinians in the West Bank, a sign the 32 months of violence
Washington had hoped to end was unlikely to abate.

In a village near the West Bank city of Tulkarm, soldiers entered a home to arrest three armed Palestinians ignoring calls to surrender,
opened fire, and killed two, the military sources said. Residents confirmed two Palestinians were shot dead.

Israeli security sources said the Palestinians were members of the Islamic militant Hamas group planning a suicide attack against Israel.

Arafat, who was excluded from Wednesday's landmark talks in Jordan but apparently played a behind-the-scenes role, dismissed Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon's summit pledge to uproot some settler outposts in the West Bank as meaningless.

"Unfortunately, he has not yet offered anything tangible," the Palestinian leader told reporters at his battered West Bank headquarters in
Ramallah.

"What's the significance of removing a caravan from one location and then saying 'I have removed a settlement'?"

Brought together by U.S. President George W. Bush, Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas committed themselves to
following a peace "road map".

Bush, cementing his new role as chief mediator in the conflict, won an Israeli promise to start dismantling some recently built settler enclaves
and a Palestinian call to end the armed struggle for an independent state.

But Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other factions behind attacks on Israelis rejected Abbas's call to lay down their arms and Israelis questioned
Abbas's ability to make good on his promise.

PRAISE AND SCEPTICISM

World leaders lauded the summiteers, though many Arabs voiced scepticism. "I don't think anyone in any quarter is getting carried away
with the idea of instant optimism," a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair said.

Chanting "We are all martyrs-in-waiting", fighters belonging to an armed offshoot of Arafat's Fatah faction trained with assault rifles and
mortar launchers in the southern Gaza Strip.

"The road map leads to hell," a masked spokesman said, threatening a "painful response" against Israel in coming days.

The Palestinians questioned Sharon's commitment to a two-state solution and to dismantling Jewish settlements in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip, seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. Palestinians want the territories for their own state.

An Israeli security source said that next week Sharon would begin dismantling some of the 50 hilltop outposts built by Jewish settlers without
government permission since he came to power in March 2001.

Israeli officials have said as few as 10 may be dismantled.

Reuters

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