Israel cuts all contact with Arafat following assassination

11.00 am - By PHIL REEVES

JERUSALEM - Israel has frozen all contact with Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority as the first-ever assassination of an Israeli cabinet minister by Palestinian guerillas threatens to demolish urgent new international efforts to bring to calm to the Middle East.

Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon pledged to launch a "war to the finish" against "terrorists", a development that jeopardises a drive led by the United States and Britain to cool off the Israel-Palestinian conflict during the war in Afghanistan.

The Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a radical nationalist faction, said it killed Rechavam Zeevi, a 75-year-old retired army general and hardline leader of a marginal far right parliamentary group who advocated the mass expulsion of Palestinians from the occupied territories.

He has been expected to resign yesterday as tourism minister because he felt his government was too lenient towards Mr Arafat.

Israel - which resumed its assassinations policy on Sunday by killing a Hamas militant - retaliated by reimposing a clamp-down on the occupied territories, which it claimed to have eased this week as part of a ceasefire deal.

Israel's Channel Two television said that the Israeli cabinet, which was meeting last night, was planning to prevent Mr Arafat from travelling to world capitals in search of support, by closing the Palestinians' airport in the Gaza Strip.

Condemnation of the assassination, which happened in the Hyatt Hotel in Arab east Jerusalem yesterday, came from around the world. A spokesman for President Bush condemned the killing in the "strongest terms", describing it as a "despicable act that provided further evidence of the need to fight terrorism" - words which will please Mr Sharon who seized on yesterday's events to draw more parallels between Israel's conflict with the Palestinians and the US's war on terror following the 11 September atrocities.

A spokesman for British Prime Minister Tony Blair said it underlined "the need to get the peace process moving again".

Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority denounced the killing, although this was not accepted by Mr Sharon who made clear that he considered Mr Arafat to be the culprit for failing to contain guerrilla attacks on Israelis.

"We stand against all political assassinations, despite the fact that Mr Zeevi espoused hostile policies toward the Palestinian people, including advocating the forced transfer of millions of Palestinians," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, the Palestinian information minister.

There were reports last night that the PA had arrested at least one West Bank official from the PFLP, which said the killing was in revenge for the assassination of its leader, Abu Ali Mustafa, who was killed by Israeli helicopter missiles fired into his office in Ramallah on 27 August.

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