The UN ceasefire deal announced today will buy temporary calm, but make the next war between Israel and Tehran’s proxy army inevitable, former Israeli foreign minister Silvan Shalom and some military analysts warned.

ISRAELI officials convened emergency meetings yesterday to decide how to respond to the militant Hamas group’s upset victory in Palestinian elections, maintaining an outward silence while privately blaming each other for the upheaval.

Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his Cabinet ministers to quit Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon’s government today.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won a primary to head the Likud Party in a March election against the leader who abandoned the party, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, just hours before Sharon was to be released from a Jerusalem hospital after treatment for a mild stroke.

DESPITE suffering a mild stroke, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon does not have any major health problems and will be released from the hospital today.

Ariel Sharon is expected to make a full recovery after suffering a mild stroke and will be released from hospital tomorrow, his doctors said today.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon joked with aides and discussed affairs of state today after suffering a mild stroke, but his illness raised questions about his ability to lead the country if elected to a third term in March elections.

Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz has quit the Likud party to join Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, another aftershock from the political earthquake Sharon set off when he formed his new centrist party.

ISRAEL called Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “very dangerous” yesterday after he expressed doubt that the Holocaust occurred and suggested the Jewish state be moved to Europe.

Iran’s hard-liner president, who once called for Israel to be “wiped off the map”, again sparked a barrage of international criticism yesterday, saying the Jewish state should be moved to Europe and questioning whether the Holocaust took place.

Israel today arrested 15 militants and prohibited most Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza from entering Israel in response to a suicide bombing that killed five Israelis a day earlier.

A PALESTINIAN suicide bomber blew himself up yesterday among shoppers waiting to enter a shopping mall in the central Israeli town of Netanya, killing at least five bystanders and wounding more than 30.

Ariel Sharon’s new party would sweep a March 28 election and crush the hard-line Likud Party he abandoned, allowing the Israeli prime minister to form a coalition with the dovish Labour Party, according to opinion polls published today.

Likud’s governing body met today for the first time since Ariel Sharon’s defection, hoping to pick up the pieces of a shattered party even as the race to succeed him dissolved into a fury of backbiting.

Ariel Sharon’s main allies launched their election campaign today, saying the prime minister’s new centrist party would push for a final agreement with the Palestinians and the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon consulted members of his Likud Party today about the possibility of holding an early election, and his foreign minister said Sharon was ready to set a date for March.

Hamas would consider holding negotiations with Israel, a top leader of the Islamic militant group said in an interview broadcast today, indicating that the hardline group was moderating its tone ahead of Palestinian parliamentary elections.

Hamas said today that the Islamic militant group would not renew an informal nine-month-old truce, which expires at the end of the year, after Israel killed one of its leading activists in an airstrike in Gaza.

Hamas, the largest Palestinian militant group said today it would not go back to all-out war against Israel, even after Israeli missiles killed one of its top gunmen.

Israeli missiles hit a car in the Gaza Strip, killing two top militants, drawing threats of reprisals and further compromising Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas ’ efforts to restore calm and take control of the volatile seaside territory.

ISRAELI Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said yesterday Iran intends to destroy the Jewish state, and the international community must rally quickly to stop it.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said today that Iran intends to destroy the Jewish state, and that the international community must rally quickly to stop it.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister says the Bush administration did not heed Saudi warnings about occupying Iraq, and he does not believe a new constitution and elections will solve the emerging nation’s problems.

Palestinian police are incapable of controlling armed militants, and al-Qaida is posed to infiltrate the Gaza Strip and Israel, Israel’s domestic security chief warned today, reflecting deep Israeli concerns over threats that could result from chaos in Gaza following its handover to the Palestinian Authority.

Palestinian forces sealed off five major breaches along Gaza’s porous southern border, fired warning shots in the air and clashed with stone-throwing crowds today, in their strongest effort yet to halt the chaotic flood of people in and out of Egypt since Israel’s withdrawal from the area.

Israel is to close the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt until further notice, officials said today, after proposing new arrangements that could include movement of Palestinians in and out of Gaza under the supervision of foreign inspectors without an Israeli presence.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom today said the Israeli army could complete its pullout of Gaza as early as next Monday, three days ahead of schedule.

EGYPTIAN president Hosni Mubarak plans to visit Israel in November, an Israeli official said yesterday, in what would be just his second visit to the Jewish state.

A mysterious blast after nightfall tonight levelled a building in Gaza City, killing four people and wounding at least 30, residents and hospital officials said.

The foreign ministers of Israel and Pakistan, a Muslim country that has long taken a hard line against the Jewish state, met publicly for the first time today, a diplomatic breakthrough that follows Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

With less than a month to go before Israel plans its historic withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she will talk to both Israeli and Palestinian leaders about preserving hopes for peace and stability.

The Israeli government paid tribute to Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern today for his attempts to stop attacks on Jewish buildings in Dublin.

Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been on his way to a London hotel near the scene of one of the four blasts that ripped through the city today, said Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom.

Israel was not warned about possible terror attacks in London before at least six blasts ripped through the city, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said today.

PRESIDENT-ELECT Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed yesterday to pursue a peaceful nuclear program - an effort the US maintains is really a cover for trying to build bombs - and said his government will not be an extremist one.

ISRAELI soldiers killed a top Islamic Jihad militant in a gun battle yesterday, and a Palestinian mortar attack on a Jewish settlement killed two non-Israeli workers in one of the deadliest days since February’s truce.

ISRAEL must withdraw from the Gaza Strip, no matter how well Islamic militants do in Palestinian parliament elections a month before the pullout, Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said yesterday.

Israel must withdraw from the Gaza Strip, no matter how well Islamic militants do in Palestinian parliament elections a month before the pullout, Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said today.

Israel is delaying its pullout from Gaza and part of the West Bank, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said, citing a religious mourning period that ends in mid-August – but raising doubts about Israel’s readiness and even its resolve in carrying out the evacuation.

Israel’s evacuation of 21 Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip will begin in mid-August, a month later than planned, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said today, citing a religious mourning period but raising doubts about Israel’s readiness for the evacuation and even its resolve in carrying it out.

Israeli deputy prime minister Shimon Peres said today the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip would not start, as initially planned, in the second half of July.

ISRAEL put in question peacemaking moves yesterday after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he would free a militant jailed over the killing of an Israeli minister.

Israel intends to hand over the West Bank town of Tulkarem to Palestinian control this week, officials on both sides said, marking the resumption of confidence-building measures halted after a suicide bombing killed five Israelis in Tel Aviv.

JORDAN’S foreign minister met Israeli leaders yesterday, the first such visit in more than four years, signifying renewed diplomatic efforts to resolve long-standing regional conflicts involving Israel, the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon.