Blaming Yasser Arafat for global terrorism and the failure to achieve Middle East peace, an Israeli Cabinet minister expressed hope today that a new Palestinian leadership would put down militant groups and negotiate with Israel.

Israel will permit Yasser Arafat to be buried in the Gaza Strip, but not in Jerusalem, an Israeli Cabinet minister said today, as the Palestinian leader lay gravely ill in a Paris hospital.

An Israeli Cabinet minister said today it was ``clear'' Yasser Arafat was brain dead and was being kept on a life support machine.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is expected to fire one of his Cabinet ministers after television uncovered a scandal in which a minister is heard in a taped conversation planning to frame a fellow minister.

An Israeli cabinet minister said today that images of the army’s demolition of Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip reminded him of his grandmother, who suffered under Nazi rule during World War II.

ISRAELI Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is scrambling to come up with alternatives after his Likud Party overwhelmingly rejected a withdrawal from all of the Gaza Strip, a government official said today.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is scrambling to come up with alternatives, including a possible pullout from just five Jewish settlements, after his Likud Party overwhelmingly rejected a withdrawal from all of the Gaza Strip, a senior government official said today.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today warned that “tough decisions” lie ahead after his Likud Party rejected his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip.

PRIME MINISTER Ariel Sharon and key Cabinet ministers yesterday considered proposals to move sections of a contentious West Bank security barrier closer to Israel, apparently hoping to deflect growing international criticism.

The United States has criticised Israel’s prime minister Ariel Sharon over his threat to draw his own borders and isolate the Palestinians if peace efforts remain deadlocked.

A Palestinian gunman, his rifle wrapped in a prayer mat, walked to a West Bank checkpoint and killed two Israelis at close range today, just a day after both sides hinted at progress towards a truce and a quick Israel-Palestinian summit.

ISRAEL’S cabinet yesterday voted to release several hundred Palestinian prisoners, a move that could help push forward a US-backed peace plan.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas today accepted the resignation of a top peace negotiator who had been excluded from a summit later in the day with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer’s visit to Israel, the first by a senior European official since the new Sharon government was installed last month, began with a snub today.

Winning Israel’s general election was the easy part. Now premier Ariel Sharon faces an uphill battle to form a national unity government against “the murderous hatred” of Palestinian militants.

Israel’s opposition Labour party today dropped further in three opinion polls, just five days ahead of the country’s general election.