Furthermore, certainly don't take the occasional public criticisms coming from Secretary of State Colin Powell and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan very seriously. Both the U.S. and the U.N. have been outmanuevered by the Israelis before; and Sharon certainly has no intention of letting them stand in his way now. Moreover what Powell and Annan are doing with their muted public comments is largely attempting to put up shields around themselves when it comes time for historical blame. Much more bloodshed and destruction are coming; and only serious actions on the part of the U.S., the U.N., and the Arab regimes -- certainly not just more words for the cameras -- are the only things that will hold Sharon and the Israelis he now commands at bay.

[Ananova News - 16 July] Israeli tanks have rolled into the Palestinian sector of Hebron and exchanged heavy fire with Palestinian gunmen for several hours. Nine Palestinians have been wounded in the deepest incursion since Israel withdrew from most of the city in 1997.

The Israeli raid was triggered by Palestinian shooting attacks at Israeli army posts and a Jewish settlement near Hebron late on Sunday.

In the battle, Israeli tanks destroyed four Palestinian police posts in Hebron and one in a nearby village.

The latest exchange makes it increasingly unlikely that a US-backed truce, declared a month ago, will take hold. Fighting has been escalating in recent days.

The flare-up comes despite an upbeat assessment by Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, after a meeting in Cairo, Egypt, on Sunday with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, that the ceasefire could be made to stick.

"I'm leaving Cairo with the sense that there is hope," Mr Peres said after talking to Mr Arafat for more than an hour.

In Jerusalem, meanwhile, Israeli police have found the bodies of two Palestinians who apparently died while assembling a bomb. The bodies were found about half a mile from Jerusalem's Teddy Stadium where the Maccabiah Games, an Olympic-style event for Jewish athletes from around the world, are due to open.

Jerusalem police chief Mickey Levy says police are investigating whether the stadium is the target of the bombers. More than 1,000 officers will guard athletes and specators at the opening ceremony, to be attended by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Meanwhile Israel's Cabinet has approved a plan to build new communities near the Gaza Strip on territory that the previous government had considered giving to the Palestinians in a land-swap deal, an official said.

The decision drew criticism from Israeli opposition figures and environmental groups.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Cabinet approved the proposal to develop Israeli communities in Halutza Sands, a desert region adjoining the southeast corner of the Gaza Strip, according to Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin.

While the land is Israeli territory, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak had proposed that Halutza Sands be given to the Palestinians in exchange for Israel annexing Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank, according to Israeli media reports at the time.

Mossi Raz, a member of the dovish Meretz Party, criticised the government decision, saying it could complicate future negotiations, and environmental groups oppose development of the area, which includes a national park.

JERUSALEM (AP - 15 July) - Israel's Cabinet approved a proposal Sunday to build new communities near the Gaza Strip on Israeli territory that the previous government had considered giving to the Palestinians in a land-swap deal, an official said.

The decision drew criticism from Israeli opposition figures and environmental groups.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Cabinet approved the plan to develop Israeli communities in the Halutza Sands region, a mostly desert area adjoining the southeast corner of the Gaza Strip, according to Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin.

While the land is Israeli territory, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak had proposed that Halutza Sands be given to the Palestinians in exchange for Israel's annexing Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank.

Those negotiations collapsed amid the nearly 10 months of Israeli-Palestinian fighting, and the Halutza Sands proposal is no longer on the table.

However, Mossi Raz, a member of the dovish Meretz Party, criticized the government decision, saying it could complicate future negotiations.

``I think the government is tying its own hands,'' Raz said. ``Even if a peace agreement doesn't happen today, what will happen in 10 years?''

Also, environmental groups oppose development of the area, which includes a national park.

There was no immediate word on when building might begin, or how large the proposed communities would be. The Palestinian leadership did not immediately comment on the Israeli plan.

Meanwhile, there were heavy exchanges of fire between Palestinians and Israeli troops at several places in and around the divided West Bank city of Hebron, but no immediate reports of casualties. Jewish settlers in Hebron took over a Palestinian home for several hours, before the Israeli army forced them to leave.

Hebron, a place of chronic friction, has been particularly tense in recent days following the shooting deaths of two Jewish settlers in the area by Palestinian militants.

Palestinians also opened fire at the Jewish settlement of Psagot, near Ramallah and at Neve Dekalim in the Gaza Strip.

In another West Bank town, Bethlehem, a member of the militant Islamic Jihad group was seized from the street by men believed to be Israeli undercover agents, according to Palestinian security sources.

Mahmoud Hamdan, 42, was grabbed by men who had been masquerading as street vendors in a market, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Israeli military sources confirmed that the army was responsible, and claimed that Hamdan was a bombmaker for Islamic Jihad.

Also Sunday, an Israeli human rights group accused Israeli police in a West Bank settlement of torturing Palestinian teen-agers arrested for alleged stone throwing.

Ten youths, aged 14 to 17, held at the Gush Etzion police station said they were beaten and left in painful positions for prolonged periods of time, the Betselem human rights group said.

[Ha'aretz - 16 July]: An Israeli military unit yesterday snatched an Islamic Jihad activist from Palestinian Authority territory near Bethlehem. The military spokesman declined to comment on the reported operation.

Mahmud Juma Hamdan, 44, was seized yesterday morning from the village of A-Rahma, south of Bethlehem, in Area A, under full PA control. The Israeli force, presumably comprised of members of the Shin Bet security service and IDF soldiers, arrested Hamdan one-and-a-half kilometers inside Area A. No one was injured during the operation.

Despite the IDF's refusal to comment, security sources were able to provide ample information about Hamdan's past. They said he had been a member of Fatah, but had joined Islamic Jihad in recent years. He had been trained in Syria and Jordan, where he had learned how to prepare explosive devices, and handle grenades and a Kalashnikov assault rifle, the sources said.

In 1990 Hamdan lost his left hand while preparing a bomb intended for detonation in the territories. In recent times, the security sources said, the man had returned to terrorist activities and had been involved in planning various incidents, including the kidnapping and murdering of soldiers and suspected Palestinian collaborators, as well as the planting of bombs and attacks on settlers.

Hamdan is not the only long-serving Palestinian activist apprehended over the past few months. Recent Shin Bet investigations have turned up a number of veteran Fatah members suspected of involvement in hostile activities against Israel; some of these activists have been arrested.

Yesterday's seize-operation was the second of its kind within a week. The first involved the abduction of a senior member of the Hamas military wing from PA territory in Hebron.

PA steps up action against Islamists

High-ranking Israeli security sources said yesterday that the PA had prevented a number of terror strikes planned by the Islamic organizations in recent days. One of the attacks was blocked by the arrest of three members of Islamic Jihad by members of the PA's counter-security apparatus in the Gaza Strip, headed by Mohammed Dahlan. The three men were armed and were arrested close to the Dugit settlement in the north of the Strip.

The PA's counter-security apparatus also got wind of plans by a Hamas cell to carry out terror strikes within the Green Line. The members of the cell were apprehended and warned not to go ahead with their plans.

According to the Israeli security sources, however, the PA is continuing with its "soft" approach in the form of warnings and "protective detention."

"Even when activists were arrested, they were not interrogated and more arrests did not follow. This is in no way like the effort that the PA made against Hamas and Islamic Jihad following the wave of bus attacks in the winter of 1996," a security sources told Ha'aretz.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer told the cabinet yesterday that Israel would continue its policy of pinpoint responses in the wake of any attack in the territories. According to Sharon, such responses will be made even following incidents in which Israelis were not hurt.

Jerusalem bomb suspect held in custody

Police revealed yesterday that a Palestinian man was arrested on suspicion of planting an explosive device at the Biankini Pub in Jerusalem two months ago.

Said Jaber, from the Al-Omri refugee camp near Ramallah, was arrested by Border Police two weeks after the incident. Following his interrogation by the police, Jaber was transferred to the Shin Bet for further questioning and admitted to the suspicions against him.

Some two months ago, a bomb was found in the pub at 3 A.M., while hundreds of youths were in the location. The investigation into the incident has revealed that Jaber entered the pub carrying a plastic bag. When the owner questioned him about what he was doing, he said he had wanted to change his clothes in the toilet, showing her the bag and saying that it contained clothes.

Jaber went into the toilets and left the pub a short while later, leaving the bag behind a couch in one of the rooms and escaping in a car that was waiting outside for him. Jerusalem police sappers disarmed the bomb. Settlers occupy house in Hebron

Dozens of settlers from Hebron occupied an abandoned house in the city's casbah yesterday morning, only to evacuate the building some five hours later. The settlers published a statement saying that the purpose of their operation had been to prove just how flimsily they were being guarded by the IDF.

"The fact that Jews managed to enter a house in the casbah, which lies adjacent to the residences of the Jews in Hebron, undisturbed is evidence that the IDF is not stationed around our homes in practice and the place has been abandoned, in fact, to the terrorists," the statement of the settlers read.

The settlers said they had evacuated the building willingly so as not to enter into a conflict with the Israeli soldiers and after proving their point. The settlers then met with IDF commanders in the area to express their concerns regarding their personal security in the area.

The area of the house that was occupied has not been declared a closed military zone; it lies in the area of Hebron that comes under full Israeli control.

Meanwhile the head of the Meretz Knesset faction, MK Zahava Gal-On, called on Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer to take harsh measures against settlers who were taking the law into their own hands.

Gal-On said that statements made by settlers about the sanctity of vengeance could lead to the establishment of a new Jewish underground movement. When rabbis called for state-sponsored acts of retribution, she said, the security authorities should step into action and stop those settlers who were uprooting trees, smashing windows, burning cars and even going as far as taking the lives of Palestinians.

A relatively quiet day

Relatively few shooting incidents were reported in the territories yesterday. Twice, shots were fired at the Jewish enclave in Hebron, while shooting also took place in the areas of Tul Karm, Ramallah, the Katif Bloc and Rafiah.

Palestinian sources said that 20 Palestinians were lightly to moderately injured by IDF gunfire in the area of Hebron. Meanwhile, the Voice of Palestine radio station reported that three of the injured had been shot by Jewish settlers from the Avraham Avinu neighborhood of the city.

JERUSALEM, July 16 (Agence France-Presse) - Israel was bracing Sunday for a new wave of terror as security officials said they had received warnings of a series of planned deadly attacks by Palestinian militants.

Police and anti-terrorism units were put on high alert nationwide following vows from Palestinian radicals to keep up the armed campaign against Israel amid fading hopes for getting the two sides back on the road to peace.

On the ground there was a rare day of relative calm, punctuated by scattered gunfire and other minor incidents, as Israeli and Palestinian leaders met in Cairo to discuss the ongoing violence.

Public radio cited an unnamed top security official who said several Palestinian groups, including the militia from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, were planning a string of deadly attacks.

He said there was information that Islamic Jihad, Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine were preparing attacks that he described as "among the most serious ever."

Security forces deployed in large numbers around entrances to major cities across the country as well as at Tel Aviv's international airport, the report said.

A militant from the Islamic Jihad, 42-year-old suspected bomb-maker Mahmud Hamdan, was abducted by Israeli soldiers disguised as Palestinian produce vendors in Rama, very close to the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

Palestinian security sources said they would file a formal complaint with the Israelis.

Witnesses said another militant from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement was arrested by Israeli forces in the village of Burqa near the West Bank city of Nablus. His name was not immediately known.

No injuries were reported when Israeli soldiers traded fire with Palestinian gunmen in the flashpoint West Bank town of Hebron after Jewish settlers occupied an Arab house for several hours.

The settlers said they planned to extend the limits of Hebron's Jewish sector, where some 400 Israeli extremists live under army protection alongside some 40,000 Arab residents.

"The Jews of Hebron are under daily threat from armed Palestinians, and Israeli authorities are not doing everything necessary to protect us," a settler official told public radio.

Army radio reported that a pamphlet calling for violent revenge on Palestinians has been distributed to synagogues throughout settlements in the West Bank.

Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a schoolbus near the West Bank town of Tulkarem as well as on Israeli troops near Qalqilya, the army said. There were no injuries in either incident.

On Friday a member of the radical Hamas movement was blown up in the West Bank in an attack the group blamed on Israel, which says pinpoint attacks on suspected Palestinian militants are a legitimate form of self-defence.

The Palestinians say around 30 of their people have been killed in such targetted attacks since the uprising against the Jewish state began in late September.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres held an unscheduled meeting in Cairo, where Peres underlined that Israel would insist on seven days of calm before moving forward with an international peace plan.