Israel's Supreme Court yesterday prevented the deportation from the West Bank to Gaza of three relatives of Palestinian men alleged to have orchestrated fatal attacks on Israelis.
The Israeli government, which has said it believes such deportations might help deter future attackers, has been given 15 days by the court to justify the move.
Government officials said they intended to produce material that would demonstrate that Kifah and Intisar Ajouri protected their brother, Ali, at a safe house as he planned the dispatch of two suicide bombers to Tel Aviv last month, where they killed five people, and that Azzam Atzida provided food and a car to his brother, Nasser, as he planned two ambush attacks on buses near the settlement of Emmanuel this year, in which 20 Israelis were killed.
In the meantime, the government pressed on with another measure designed to deter the bombers and attackers, the demolition of their families' homes. Overnight in the West Bank, army bulldozers pulled down the home of one man who killed two Israelis in Beersheba in February, and of another who killed two Israelis in a May suicide bombing in Rishon Letzion.
Such measures are prompting bombers to think again, Israel's military intelligence chief, Maj Gen Aharon Ze'evi, claimed, adding that five bombings had been prevented recently by the intervention of anxious relatives.
Palestinian sources spoke of a Palestinian father who shot his son in the leg when he learned that the boy was poised to carry out a suicide bombing. The various Palestinian factions have been discussing calling a halt to suicide bombings inside Israel, but while some in the Fatah faction of the PLO, loyal to the Palestinian Authority President, Yasser Arafat, are known to favour an end to the bombings, members of Fatah's al-Aqsa Brigades, along with the Islamic extremists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, reject the notion.
Underlining internal Palestinian tensions, Islamist gunmen fought yesterday with Fatah gunmen in Lebanon's largest refugee camp, Ein el-Hilwe, 28 miles south of Beirut. Two people were killed, one a Fatah fighter, after the Islamists attacked a camp area controlled by Fatah. The clash climaxed weeks of tension since Fatah handed over an Islamic militant to the Lebanese authorities; more handovers are imminent.
Stepping up Israel's efforts to discredit Mr Arafat, meanwhile, Maj Gen Ze'evi told Knesset members that the PA head had tucked away $1.3 billion in personal assets, and asserted that Mr Arafat was becoming increasingly isolated and resented by his public.
Israel also announced plans to today indict one of Mr Arafat's key deputies, Mr Marwan Barghouti, on charges including incitement to murder. Mr Barghouti, often touted as an Arafat successor, was arrested by Israel four months ago, and is alleged to have commanded the al-Aqsa Brigades as they carried out a series of attacks in which, according to a Justice Ministry statement, "dozens of Israeli citizens lost their lives".
Mr Barghouti's lawyer, Mr Khader Shkirat, said the case would represent "a golden opportunity to try the occupation for all the crimes committed against the Palestinian people, and to present the resistance movement as a just movement."
Meanwhile, amid growing speculation that Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, might call early elections at the start of 2003, the mayor of Haifa, a soft-spoken ex-general called Amram Mitzna, yesterday announced he would seek to capture the leadership of the moderate Labour Party to stand against the Prime Minister.
Mr Mitzna, the latest in a series of military men to hope that the security credentials of years in uniform will boost his political credibility, said yesterday he favoured an immediate resumption of diplomatic contacts with the PA "with no preconditions".
And if no peace accord could be reached, he said, Israel should "take unilateral steps", by pulling back from the occupied West Bank to a "security border" and evacuating settlements. Polls suggest Mr Mitzna would easily defeat the Labour leader, Mr Benjamin Ben-Eliezer.