Hundreds of Palestinians today rioted and clashed with Israeli forces at five checkpoints around Jerusalem after being prevented from entering Israel to mark the Ramadan holy month at Islam’s third-holiest site.

The centrist Kadima Party dropped in opinion polls today, a day before Israel’s elections, a sign acting that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert might have difficulty forming a coalition that will back his plan to withdraw from parts of the West Bank and draw Israel’s final borders by 2010.

Israel began tightening security a day before its crucial election, as acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert explained his plan to withdraw unilaterally from large parts of the West Bank, and opponents attacked his idea and his party.

Israeli police and rescue teams are on high alert over fears Palestinian militants were planning to carry out an attack.

PALESTINIAN gunmen linked to the ruling Fatah movement killed one of their party leaders yesterday, increasing tensions on the eve of parliamentary balloting and raising doubts about a new pledge by armed groups in the West Bank and Gaza to hold their fire during the vote.

Israeli police raided the Hamas group’s election offices in east Jerusalem today.

The hospital caring for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said early today that there was no change in his condition overnight, and doctors planned to bring him out of a medically-induced coma to begin assessing the damage caused by his massive stroke five days earlier.

Nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu was arrested by Israeli police today after visiting the West Bank, Jerusalem police said.

Police stormed a disputed Jerusalem holy site today, throwing stun grenades to disperse hundreds of Palestinian worshippers who threw stones at police and Jewish visitors.

Palestinian protesters threw stones at Israeli police guarding a disputed holy site today, slightly wounding seven officers, including Jerusalem’s police chief, authorities said.

Israeli police prevented more than a dozen Israeli demonstrators from disrupting voting in today’s Palestinian presidential vote, a Jerusalem police spokesman said.

AN explosion apparently caused by a faulty gas cannister in a shop sparked brief alarm in central Jerusalem last night, but no one was hurt, police said.

An Israeli border police officer today shot and killed a Palestinian attacker who stabbed him in the neck in Jerusalem’s Old City, police said.

Israeli police today stormed a disputed Jerusalem holy site after Muslim prayers, firing plastic bullets, stun grenades and tear gas to disperse hundreds of Palestinian stone throwers.

Israel intends to destroy the family homes of four Palestinians suspected of terrorist attacks that killed 36 bystanders - a punitive measure the Israelis believe also acts as a deterrent.

Israel’s tourism minister was shot dead today in an ambush at a Jerusalem hotel in what a militant Palestinian group said was its revenge for the killing of their leader by Israel.

An Israeli man was shot and wounded today in an east Jerusalem hotel, police said.

Three people have been injured in two simultaneous explosions in Jerusalem today.

A bomb exploded next to a parked car in the centre of Jerusalem today and set the vehicle alight, but no one was hurt.

The US-sponsored ceasefire in the Middle East has been thrown into jeopardy after two shooting deaths on the West Bank.

A car bomb has exploded in the centre of Jerusalem, not far from the place where a similar bomb went off nine hours earlier.