Israel has suspended all security contacts with the Palestinian Authority and is sealing off Bethlehem in the West Bank after weekend attacks killed three Israeli settlers and an Islamic militant.
Demanding a Palestinian crackdown on militants, Israel said it was suspending all security contacts with the Palestinian Authority that had increased in recent months with co-ordination of the pullout from the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said Israel told the Palestinian Authority the freeze applied to diplomatic contacts as well. Israel 's Foreign Ministry denied this.
Israeli forces also erected concrete barricades and set up roadblocks at entrances to the West Bank town of Bethlehem and nearby villages, an area under Palestinian security control from which Sunday's attackers were thought to have come.
Palestinian cars were banned from certain roads in the West Bank, where troops have kept most towns and cities encircled during much of a five-year-old Palestinian uprising. The army said it arrested 19 wanted militants in overnight raids.
The latest fighting raised new doubts about an already-flimsy, eight-month-old ceasefire and undermined hopes that the Gaza pullout would spur renewed peacemaking.
Despite that, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas planned to go ahead with talks with President Bush this week on how to resuscitate a "road map" peace plan, an aide said.