The armed wing of the Palestinian Fateh movement on Tuesday said it had planted a powerful bomb that was defused at the home of an Israeli navy officer in the Tel Aviv suburb of Raanana. Meanwhile, Israel shrugged off US pressure to withdraw from autonomous PA towns it had re-occupied.
Fateh's Al Aqsa Brigades said in a statement it had placed the bomb at the entrance to the house of Colonel Natan Barak as a "message to him and others like him whose hands are covered with Palestinian blood."
"This is an open war and the blood of our martyrs will not go away and the Al Aqsa Brigades will not go away and will resist," the statement said, cited by AFP.
The Tel Aviv-based Haaretz daily said that police were on high alert Tuesday in the Sharon area, near the 1967 Green Line Border, because of warnings that terrorists were in the area.
Police forces placed roadblocks at the entrances to several towns in the area and closed down the market in Baqa al Gharbiyyeh. Police also beefed up their forces near Nahal Iron, Zichron Ya'akov, Binyamina and Hadera.
Police officials announced Tuesday that they had intelligence information that "hostile elements" were making their way to the center of the country, and that they might be using private or public transportation, including taxis.
In the course of the day, the police have been conducting operations near the 1967 Green Line Border aimed at arresting Palestinians in Israel without permits. The police have asked citizens and drivers to be on alert, said the paper.
Defense Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday that security forces foiled the bombing attack on Tel Aviv on Sunday. Ben Eliezer added that there were warnings of suicide bombers preparing to carry out large-scaled terror attacks and blamed Arafat for not acting to prevent attacks against Israel.
The targeted navy officer called the police early Tuesday morning after finding a booby-trapped fire extinguisher next to his bed in his home.
The officer discovered the fire extinguisher, which had a cellular phone and explosive material attached to it, when he awoke around 5:30pm.
Police sappers who arrived at the scene used a robot to detonate the explosive device, according to Haaretz.
ISRAELI BUCKS US PRESSURE TO LEAVE PALESTINIAN TOWNS
Despite renewed US insistence, Israel refused to pull its tanks back from their threatening positions in and around five Palestinian towns Tuesday after a meeting of security chiefs from both sides ended in mutual recriminations.
Israel accused the Palestinians of reneging on promises made in earlier truce talks to arrest suspected extremists determined to derail any lasting ceasefire efforts.
Defense spokesman Yarden Vatikai said that during the US-sponsored talks in Tel Aviv late Monday, "the Palestinians refused to commit to arresting terrorists, which is a necessary condition for further Israeli withdrawals from autonomous Palestinian sectors."
For their part, the Palestinians condemned Israel's refusal to pull its troops and tanks out of the West Bank towns.
"This meeting came to nothing because of Israel's refusal to pull out of these towns, to lift the siege and stop the killings," Palestinian preventative security chief Colonel Jibril Rajoub said on Voice of Palestine radio.
"We agreed on nothing, and there is no reason to hold a further meeting of this type, unless Israel changes its stance and renounces force,” he added.
However, Vatikai said the joint High Security Committee would meet again under US auspices, but did not provide a date.
Israeli forces invaded in six West Bank towns following the October 17 assassination of Tourism Minister Rehavem Zeevi by a hardline Palestinian group.
It pulled out of Bethlehem Sunday night following a tripartite security meeting over the weekend, as well as from the nearby village of Beit Jala, which had been the scene of the heaviest fighting since the Israeli operation began.
But the failure to find common ground for a new move by either party undercut the hopes raised by the departure of dozens of tanks and hundreds of soldiers from Bethlehem.
A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had said Monday that a further withdrawal would depend on calm being maintained in Bethlehem, which was severely battered by the Israeli incursion.
Procedures for a further withdrawal, from Nablus, Ramallah, Jenin, Tulkarem and Qalqilya, should have been agreed at Monday's failed meeting.
The United States, which hopes to soothe regional tensions to win Arab and Muslim support for its war on Islamic terror suspects in Afghanistan, hailed the Israeli decision to leave Bethlehem as "encouraging" but urged its Jewish ally to go further, and faster.
"We want to see this begin (and) continue on a day-to-day basis, we want to see it go through immediately," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. "We look to Israel to complete the withdrawal from all the other Palestinian-controlled areas."
But Israel stood defiant and made a new incursion into the Gaza Strip Tuesday and demolished Palestinian houses in the occupied east Jerusalem, according to AFP.
ARAFAT MEETS POPE JOHN PAUL II AHEAD OF BERLUSCONI TALKS
Arafat had a brief audience with Pope John Paul II in the Vatican early Tuesday, ahead of a lunchtime meeting with Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, AFP reported, quoting Vatican officials.
The meeting lasted around 15 minutes, during which time the two exchanged gifts, the officials said.
John Paul II handed Arafat a religious icon, while Arafat gave the pontiff a small nativity crib made of pearls.
Officials gave no details about the contents of their discussions.
PA ARRESTS FOUR JIHAD MEMBERS
Al Jazeera satellite channel quoted Islamic Jihad sources as confirming that four of the resistance group's members had been arrested by the Palestinian Authority, and that a number of them were interrogated and later released.
One of the arrested is Abdullah Shami, the spokesman of the group in Gaza.
The movement claimed responsibility for a shooting attack in Hadera in northern Israel on Saturday, in which four Israelis were killed – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
