Monday, July 16 12:08 AM SGT

Israel braces for terror after "serious" warnings of Palestinian attacks

JERUSALEM, July 15 (AFP) -

Israel was bracing Sunday for a new wave of terror as security officials said they had received warnings of a series of planned deadly attacks by Palestinian militants.

Police and anti-terrorism units were put on high alert nationwide following vows from Palestinian radicals to keep up the armed campaign against Israel amid fading hopes for getting the two sides back on the road to peace.

On the ground there was a rare day of relative calm, punctuated by scattered gunfire and other minor incidents, as Israeli and Palestinian leaders met in Cairo to discuss the ongoing violence.

Public radio cited an unnamed top security official who said several Palestinian groups, including the militia from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, were planning a string of deadly attacks.

He said there was information that Islamic Jihad, Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine were preparing attacks that he described as "among the most serious ever."

Security forces deployed in large numbers around entrances to major cities across the country as well as at Tel Aviv's international airport, the report said.

A militant from the Islamic Jihad, 42-year-old suspected bomb-maker Mahmud Hamdan, was abducted by Israeli soldiers disguised as Palestinian produce vendors in Rama, very close to the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

Palestinian security sources said they would file a formal complaint with the Israelis.

Witnesses said another militant from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement was arrested by Israeli forces in the village of Burqa near the West Bank city of Nablus. His name was not immediately known.

No injuries were reported when Israeli soldiers traded fire with Palestinian gunmen in the flashpoint West Bank town of Hebron after Jewish settlers occupied an Arab house for several hours.

The settlers said they planned to extend the limits of Hebron's Jewish sector, where some 400 Israeli extremists live under army protection alongside some 40,000 Arab residents.

"The Jews of Hebron are under daily threat from armed Palestinians, and Israeli authorities are not doing everything necessary to protect us," a settler official told public radio.

Army radio reported that a pamphlet calling for violent revenge on Palestinians has been distributed to synagogues throughout settlements in the West Bank.

Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a schoolbus near the West Bank town of Tulkarem as well as on Israeli troops near Qalqilya, the army said. There were no injuries in either incident.

On Friday a member of the radical Hamas movement was blown up in the West Bank in an attack the group blamed on Israel, which says pinpoint attacks on suspected Palestinian militants are a legitimate form of self-defence.

The Palestinians say around 30 of their people have been killed in such targetted attacks since the uprising against the Jewish state began in late September.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres held an unscheduled meeting in Cairo, where Peres underlined that Israel would insist on seven days of calm before moving forward with an international peace plan.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2001

Answers

I think it must be a tribute to just how irreversible a nuclear strike would be that the situation just keeps escalating and escalating, and never quite seems to take that final step.

Of course, there seem to be other parts of the world, like areas of Africa, where the casualties are many times larger, but I don't think they have they potential for causing regional and worldwide repercussions as the ME does at the moment.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2001