So, Peres has been sent to Cairo then Amman; and Sha'ath and the Egyptian Regime are once again fronting for it all. If only these two guys, along with those regimes, were finally gone from the scene.

JERUSALEM (Reuters - 25 April) - Sirens brought Israel to a standstill on Wednesday as Israelis remembered their war dead but fresh violence erupted in the Gaza Strip, killing three Palestinians.

In a moment of tribute and sorrow sharpened by the last seven months of bloody conflict with Palestinians, Israel marked its annual memorial day on the eve of its 53rd anniversary.

As it did so, the army tightened its blockade of the West Bank and Gaza, fearing attacks by Palestinian militants.

An explosion at the Rafah border between Egypt and Gaza killed three Palestinian civilians and wounded six others, Palestinian hospital officials said.

It was not immediately clear what caused the blast and there were no reports of confrontations between Israelis and Palestinians at the time.

The Israeli army did not comment, but Palestinian police said it appeared an explosive device had been planted in the border fence and blamed the blast on Israel.

Israeli soldiers also shot and wounded one Palestinian in the West Bank city of Ramallah, a night after heavy gunbattles in the area, Palestinian hospital officials said.

At least 390 Palestinians, 74 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have now been killed since Palestinians began an uprising against Israeli occupation seven months ago.

One Palestinian cabinet minister, Nabil Sha'ath, said he saw a glimmer of hope because Israel had not completely rejected an Egyptian-Jordanian peace initiative.

But the two sides continued to trade recriminations and remained far apart on the terms for resuming peace talks.

In a radio interview, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon appeared to support Israeli media reports that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat had ordered his security forces to stop mortar attacks.

He said Arafat had called his son Omri on Tuesday night and told him that he had taken unspecified measures to stop the mortar attacks. But Sharon charged the Palestinian leader with doing too little in general to stop the violence.

Repeating his conditions for resuming peace talks, Sharon said: "There are situations when a clear message has to be delivered: there can be no political negotiations, and none will be conducted, under fire."

Sharon earlier paid a Remembrance Day tribute to the 19,000 soldiers Israel has lost in a 53-year history during which it has fought five wars against Arab neighbors.

"I am no stranger to this mount... my friends, the soldiers under my command and my commanding officers are buried here," he said at Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem.

"Grief and pain follow me wherever I go, in my security, public and government work and in my private life," said the twice-widowed ex-general, who also lost a son in a gun accident.

During his long military and political career, Sharon, 73, has often been criticized for reckless conduct, not least for unleashing Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which mired the army in a costly occupation that ended only last year.

Sharon, now facing the Palestinian revolt, said he had asked Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to visit Cairo and Amman to discuss an Egyptian-Jordanian peace initiative.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the visit was unlikely to take place on Thursday, as Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper had suggested.

Egypt has reacted with dismay to Sharon's determination to crush the Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, and to his refusal to renew peace talks with Palestinians while the conflict persists.

"Israel is called upon to renounce the policy of threats and aggression and to stop military action and lift the siege on the Palestinian people," President Hosni Mubarak said in a speech to mark Wednesday's Sinai Liberation Day holiday in Egypt.

The army sealed off Palestinian areas from Israel late on Tuesday, as well as border crossings linking the territories to Jordan and Egypt, and said they would remain shut until Friday.

Israel has imposed a closure of varying intensity on Palestinian areas since the Intifada erupted. Palestinians say the travel restrictions have strangled their economy.

On Sunday, a Palestinian suicide bombing killed an Israeli doctor, and a car bomb wounded eight people on Monday, raising fears in Israel of a wave of attacks.

In Stockholm, Sha'ath said he believed Israel's willingness to consider the Jordanian-Egyptian proposals offered a rare glimmer of hope. "This might be the crack in the wall of darkness," he said.

But Sha'ath described the Israeli blockade of Palestinian territories as medieval, adding that national income had halved in a matter of months as a result.

Palestinians mark the birth of Israel on May 15, 1948, as their "Nakba" or catastrophe, which led to the loss of a large part of historic Palestine. Some 700,000 Palestinians left or were forced to flee their homes in the fighting that accompanied the declaration of the Jewish state.