MIDDLE EAST: The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, has said he planned to discuss new ways to confront Palestinian attacks with his security chiefs, on a day in which four Israelis and two Palestinians were killed in two separate incidents in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
But the Israeli leader said the measures would not include the destruction of the Palestinian Authority, or the re-occupation of Palestinian cities.
In the first attack yesterday, an Israeli police officer was killed when a Palestinian activated a car bomb before sundown near the West Bank settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim, several kilometres from Jerusalem. The bomber, who had been stopped by police officers who considered his vehicle suspicious, was killed in the explosion.
"The driver started playing around, hands in and out of pockets, and [the policemen] drew their pistols," police commander, Mr Shahar Elon, told Army Radio. "He got close to the car . . . with them and, using a remote control, detonated the bomb."
Less than two hours later, three Israelis were killed and four injured in a shooting ambush in the Gaza Strip, during which a Palestinian gunmen first opened fire on an Israeli vehicle and then blew himself up.
The attacks appeared to confirm warnings by Israeli officials of a new wave of suicide bombings. Two Palestinians, whom Israeli security officers said were planning a suicide attack, were killed Sunday near an army base in the north of the country, and security sources said another three suicide bombers had been apprehended on Sunday before they could strike.
"There are warnings all the time," said Mr Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Mr Sharon. "In the past few days they are able to get suicide bombers in a matter of days from recruitment to their targets." Mr Sharon is under growing pressure from right-wing members of his national unity government - including members of his own Likud party - to adopt even harsher measures in an attempt to extinguish the 16-month-old Palestinian uprising. "Terror has to be wiped out by conquering one [Palestinian] city after the next, one house after the next," said Mr Yuval Steinitz, a Likud parliamentarian. "All the weapons have to be collected . . . it's clear that we will sustain losses but after that the level of terror will go down."
But the Israeli leader told his party yesterday that reoccupying Palestinian-controlled areas, or smashing the Palestinian Authority of President, Mr Yasser Arafat, was not an option. "I don't want to sit in Gaza or to return to the Palestinian cities in the West Bank, that is not my standpoint," Mr Sharon said.
The Israeli army, however, yesterday reimposed a blockade on the West Bank town of Jericho, which was lifted at the end of December. An army spokesman said the town had been encircled after the military learned that a Palestinian who had lightly wounded an Israeli officer in the area Sunday night, had taken refuge in Jericho.
The death toll in the intifada has risen to at least 853 Palestinians and 267 Israelis since the uprising began against Israeli occupation in September 2000 after peace talks stalled.