Two Palestinian militant groups today threatened to call off a ceasefire with Israel if Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas persisted with an arrest campaign he launched after a suicide bombing killed five Israelis.

A meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has been postponed for several weeks, Palestinian official Nabil Abu Rdeneh said today.

AN ailing Yasser Arafat was in the fourth day of emergency treatment yesterday at a French military hospital specialising in blood disorders, but the cause of his precipitous decline in health remained unexplained.

YASSER ARAFAT yesterday ejected Israel's demand that he provide a list of everyone holed up with him in his besieged office, a Palestinian negotiator said.

ISRAELI soldiers blew up three buildings in Yasser Arafat compound yesterday, rocking the office where he was holed up and sending huge clouds of smoke into the air.

An Israeli military court has backed the expulsion of three Palestinian relatives of suspected terrorists from the West Bank to Gaza.

Yasser Arafat has accepted a US plan aimed at ending the month-old Israeli siege on his office.

Three Palestinians were killed today as Israeli tanks moved deeper into West Bank towns, tightening their grip on biblical Bethlehem and five other towns in the widest operation against the Palestinians in years.