- (AFP) -- Dozens of Israeli tanks backed by helicopters
raided a Gaza town and destroyed the homes of two Palestinian militants,
while in the West Bank five Palestinian pupils were wounded in a bomb attack
on their school.
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- Israel, which has occupied almost the entire West Bank
for the past three months, has launched increasingly frequent raids into
the Gaza Strip to hit militants, but has refrained from a full-scale invasion
of the southern territory.
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- Israeli tanks pushed several kilometers (miles) into
the town of Khanun, just north of Khan Yunis, and began demolishing houses
belonging to Palestinians recently shot dead by the army while attempting
to carry out anti-Israeli attacks, they said Tuesday.
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- The army however said one of the houses belonged to a
militant of the Islamic radical movement Hamas who killed two Israeli soldiers
in 1993.
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- The Israeli army said in a statement later that in an
overnight operation near Khan Yunis it had arrested 23 Palestinians "suspected
of hostile activities against Israel."
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- Palestinian security officials said 15 were later released.
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- Soldiers also destroyed nine makeshift bomb factories
north of the town, the army said. The Palestinians said the workshops had
been used for making farm implements and kitchen units, with no links to
militant groups.
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- Near the reoccupied West Bank city of Hebron, five pupils
were wounded by a bomb planted in their school building in the village
of Zif, witnesses said.
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- The bomb was reportedly concealed in the school toilets.
A second device was later found and neutralised by army sappers.
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- Israeli public radio said the army suspected Jewish settlers
from nearby communities of planting the devices.
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- A bomb also exploded in the path of an Israeli army jeep
at Abu Dis in the West Bank near Jerusalem, without causing casualties.
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- Israel lifted its curfew on the West Bank cities of Ramallah,
Tulkarem and Jenin for several hours on Tuesday, after the army locked
down the entire West Bank on Monday for the 24-hour Jewish festival of
Yom Kippur.
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- Attacks have dropped off dramatically in the past six
weeks, although Israeli security forces sweeping the West Bank for militants
are still arresting suspects accused of plotting new bombings.
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- But violence has persisted in the Palestinian territories,
with one Egyptian man, who had volunteered to fight with the Palestinians,
shot dead in the Gaza Strip on Monday.
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- In New York, top diplomats from the so-called "quartet"
of the United States, Russia, the European Union and United Nations were
to hold fresh talks on relaunching the peace process.
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- Palestinian spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said the quartet
should set a political timetable for the next three months and not allow
the tensions with Iraq to overshadow their efforts.
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- Even as the Palestinian uprising, or intifada, has dwindled
on the eve of its second anniversary on September 29, fears in Israel have
shifted to the possibility of an Iraqi strike should Washington attack
Baghdad.
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- Israel, like Washington, was unimpressed by Iraq's offer
to allow UN weapons inspectors to return to work after almost four years.
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- Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said he believed
the United States will "intervene" in Iraq despite Baghdad's
offer to allow weapons inspectors to return.
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- "The United States unequivocally said they want
to intervene militarily in Iraq ... I don't think they can go in any other
direction," said Peres in New York.
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