A top Mideast envoy has criticised Israel in especially tough language for moving too slowly on negotiations to open Gaza’s borders, saying the country is behaving almost as if the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip never happened.

A top Middle East envoy has criticised Israel in especially tough language for moving too slowly on negotiations to open Gaza’s borders, saying the country is behaving almost as if the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip never happened.

The Israeli military has arrested dozens of Hamas candidates for parliament and local councils as part of its new offensive against the Islamic militant group.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is having trouble imposing order in unruly Gaza, and he is cut off from his people by a wall of bodyguards.

Israel today closed the vital Gaza-Egypt border crossing just days before completing its military pullout from the coastal strip.

With blazing speed, Israeli bulldozers are demolishing the 2,800 homes left behind after Israel cleared the Gaza Strip of its Jewish residents in less than a week.

ISRAEL has halted the release of Palestinian prisoners, demanding that the Palestinian Authority crack down on militants before anyone else is freed, in a blow to a ceasefire that has drastically reduced bloodshed.

YASSER ARAFAT must “disappear from the stage of history,” Israel’s defence minister said yesterday, adding that the Palestinian leader’s fate — most likely expulsion — may be decided before the end of the year.

Yasser Arafat must “disappear from the stage of history,” Israel’s defence minister said today, adding that the Palestinian leader’s fate – most likely expulsion – may be decided before the end of the year.

THE militant group Hamas threatened revenge yesterday after Israel killed four of its members in a missile strike and declared anyone in the group a target for “liquidation.”

A SUICIDE attacker detonated explosives at the entrance to a crowded mall in northern Israel yesterday, killing at least three shoppers and wounding 47, the latest in a series of bombings that have derailed US peace efforts.

IN an election-day attack, two Palestinian gunmen opened fire yesterday at a Likud Party office and at passengers in a nearby bus terminal in the northern Israeli town of Beit Shean. Five Israelis were killed and dozens wounded in the attack.

FOUR schoolchildren were among 11 Israeli's killed when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up on a packed bus in Jerusalem yesterday.

Four schoolchildren were among 11 Israeli’s killed when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up on a packed bus in Jerusalem today.

Yasser Arafat’s agreement to allow the deportation of 13 suspected militants holed up in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity has angered many Arabs who see it as an ideological betrayal of the Palestinians’ long struggle for independence.