THE CONFLICT in south Lebanon moved into its third week yesterday, but the fighting showed few signs of flagging.
Israel maintained its land, sea and air bombardments, targeting the main road south from Beirut in a bid to cut off supply routes to the south of the country, and bombing an ammunition dump at a base of Mr Ahmed Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command, a Palestinian rejectionist group alleged to have been supplying Hizbullah with Katyusha rockets.
Hizbullah, unbowed by the relentless Israeli assault, fired more Katyusha salvoes into Israel, one of which struck a kindergarten - fortunately long empty. Israeli military sources said that some Katyushas fired on Wednesday were armed with phosphorous warheads, designed to cause burns, rather than conventional explosive warheads. While the Lebanon fighting remained his major headache, the prime minister, Mr Shimon Peres, was at least able yesterday to take some satisfaction from the PLO's cancellation, in a vote ill Gaza on Wednesday night, of the anti Israeli clauses of its guiding charter.
The move left the main Israel, right wing opposition party, the Likud, in some confusion, with the party leader, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, praising it as a "step in the right direction" but other colleagues denouncing it as another trick" by the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat.
In immediate reward for the PLO move, Mr Peres's Labour Party yesterday dropped from its platform a long standing clause opposing the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
At a meeting marking the formal opening of its election campaign, the party also amended its platform regarding the Golan Heights. This effectively enables Mr Peres to conclude a deal with Syria, should the opportunity arise, involving the return of the entire Golan in exchange for a peace treaty.
Reuter adds: Israeli police said a Palestinian whose body was discovered near a football field in Arab East Jerusalem yesterday was probably a suicide bomber killed while preparing a bomb.
"It looks to us like a suicide terrorist. He had a relatively big bomb," said the Jerusalem police commander, Gen Arieh Amit.
Gen Amit told Israel Radio police found a Qur'an on the fragmented body. Police suspect the man was planning to blow up a bus or a soldiers' hitch hiking station, he said.
Islamic militants killed 59 people in four suicide bombings in Israel in February and March, and Israeli police were on high alert this week against possible attacks during celebrations marking Independence Day.
In Gaza City, the PLO security forces captured the number two man in the armed wing of the Islamic Hamas group in Gaza in their pursuit of militants linked, to the suicide bombings, a senior official said yesterday.
The official said Adnan alGhoul, second in command to fugitive Mohammad al Deil, was arrested on Saturday during a raid by Palestinian intelligence officers.
Deif and Ghoul top the list of suspected activists in Hamas's Izz el Deen al Qassam brigades, which Israel asked the Palestinians Authority to arrest, after the bombings in Israel in February and March. Qassam claimed responsibility for the four attacks. The Islamic Jihad also claimed responsibility for the Tel Aviv bombing.