Palestinian police shut tunnel under security plan

3.00pm

GAZA - Palestinian security forces began shutting down smuggling tunnels in the Gaza Strip, trying to halt the rising tide of violence that has jeopardized the US-backed "road map" to peace between Israel and Palestinians.

The closures on Saturday, part of a drive by Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to clamp down on militants, followed US demands that he rein in such groups after Tuesday's suicide bomb attack on a Jerusalem bus.

The toll from the blast, claimed by Hamas, rose to 21 on Saturday after a 70-year-old woman died from her wounds.

On the political front, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction approved the appointment of Nasser Yousef as Interior Minister with wide powers over security issues.

Abbas has yet to approve the appointment of Yousef, who is considered close to Arafat and could compete with Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan, an Abbas ally, for power in the security sector.

"We have started a campaign of a number of security measures to restore law and order in the Gaza Strip," Dahlan told Reuters. Palestinian police have so far shut down three tunnels used to smuggle weapons from Egypt to Palestinian militants in the forefront of the 35-month-old uprising against Israeli occupation, and arrested several suspects, officials said.

Residents in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah reported seeing a flurry of police activity at houses believed to be hiding entrances to the tunnels, which snake their way under the Israeli-controlled border and into Egyptian territory.

It was not immediately clear whether Dahlan's forces would also start disarming militant groups, as the United States has demanded.

But it was a small flicker of hope amid the violence that risks destroying the "road map" -- a plan for reciprocal steps to end the conflict and pave the way for the creation of a Palestinian state in 2005.

Palestinian officials had said they would not crack down on militants because of Israel's assassination of a senior Hamas leader in revenge for Tuesday's suicide bombing. The Israeli action prompted militant groups to call off a unilateral truce.

President Bush called on the Palestinians on Friday to crack down on militants, a key requirement of the road map. "If the Palestinians want to see their own state, they've got to dismantle the terrorist networks," he declared.

But the Palestinian Authority said it could not act against militants in light of Israel's assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Abu Shanab and its subsequent string of raids in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"Now when the Palestinian territories are full of tanks...I think that it will hinder any effort that we will take," Information Minister Nabil Amr told reporters.

Fresh bloodshed appeared likely as Hamas and other militant groups vowed to avenge Abu Shanab's death, and Israel indicated it would carry out more strikes against Palestinian militants.

Tens of thousands of mourners at Abu Shanab's funeral demanded revenge as Hamas called to "all our cells of fighters in Palestine to strike in every corner of the Jewish state."

But an Israeli security official declared that the killing of Abu Shanab was "just the beginning" and that Israel planned "serious retaliation on the terrorist infrastructure."

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat asked US envoy John Wolf in a meeting to put pressure on Israel to halt military operations so "the Palestinian Authority can take action against militants," a senior Palestinian official said.

Palestinian officials said they hoped to negotiate a new three-way truce with militants to replace the earlier cease-fire.

"We want a hudna (truce) between the whole Palestinian Authority and Israel, that Israel commit itself to as much as we do," Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath told reporters

- REUTERS