About 11,000 turkeys have died in what Israeli officials suspect is the country’s first outbreak of the dangerous H5N1 strain of bird flu, and officials will decide within hours whether to destroy tens of thousands of other birds, they said today.

Israel’s agriculture minister today said the widespread death of turkeys at two communities in southern Israel could have been caused by the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.

ISRAELI airstrikes blasted two cars carrying Islamic Jihad militants in Gaza City last night, killing two people and wounding one other.

Israeli officials today agreed to make an overdue payment of about €54.7m owed to the Palestinians, but said future transfers will be halted once the militant group Hamas forms the next Palestinian government.

A PALESTINIAN suicide bomber trying to enter Israel blew himself up yesterday at a military checkpoint set up to foil attackers, killing an Israeli soldier and two other Palestinians.

ISRAELI troops will impose an “aerial siege” on parts of Gaza, shooting from helicopters or gunboats at anyone entering a “no-go zone” near the border, as part of a new campaign against Palestinian militants firing rockets at Israeli towns, a senior defence official said yesterday.

Israeli troops will impose an “aerial siege” on parts of Gaza, shooting from helicopters or gunboats at anyone entering a “no-go zone” near the border, as part of a new campaign against Palestinian militants firing rockets at Israeli towns, a senior defence official said today.

ISRAEL fears that half of the Jewish settlers slated for evacuation from occupied Gaza next month will stay put rather than agree to relocation, forcing troops to remove them, a cabinet minister said yesterday.

Israel will target any Palestinians who fire mortars at Israeli communities, Israeli security chiefs decided today, signalling a further erosion of a shaky Mideast truce.

The flare-up in violence in the Gaza Strip could delay Israel’s planned withdrawal from the crowded coastal area if Israel is forced to launch a new military campaign against Palestinian militants, a senior Israeli official warned today.

ISRAEL’S Cabinet yesterday adopted a report on the state’s complicity in setting up 105 illegal West Bank settlement outposts and decided to dismantle 24 of them.

A DAY after firing his top security commanders, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas went to the Gaza Strip yesterday to demand militant leaders stop attacking Israelis.

Thousands of armed Palestinian police took up positions in the northern Gaza Strip to prevent attacks on Israel, and Islamic militants said they were suspending rocket fire – major steps toward a possible truce after more than four years of bloody Mideast conflict.

Islamic militant group Hamas joined in the mood of optimism in Gaza today and signalled it would suspend rocket attacks on Israel.

Jewish settlers’ leaders warned Israel’s army chief that hundreds, and possibly thousands, of soldiers could refuse to carry out orders to evacuate them from the Gaza Strip if the government went ahead with its plan to withdraw from the coastal area later this year.

Senior Israeli and Palestinian officials are scheduled to meet in Britain next week for private talks, the first such contact between the two sides since the death of Yasser Arafat.

Israel began scaling back its 17 day offensive in the Gaza Strip today after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon heeded the army’s warning that an extended stay is too risky and the US called for a quick withdrawal.

Daily air strikes by Israelis in the Gaza strip are adding fuel to the fire for more hardline Palestinians, a senior Sinn Féin figure warned today.

An Israeli army platoon commander was suspended today on suspicion he emptied an ammunition clip into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl after she was shot from an outpost and collapsed to the ground.

BOMBS killed at least 28 people in Egyptian Red Sea resorts packed with Israeli tourists, buried dozens more and sent thousands fleeing home over the border. Israel said it suspected al-Qaida involvement.

The death toll from the Sinai resort blasts continued to rise today after an attack on a luxury hotel blamed on al-Qaida.

Israel’s deputy defence minister said today that Palestinian militants apparently were not involved the deadly car bombings in two Egyptian resorts crowded with Israeli tourists.

ISRAEL accused Syria yesterday of “directing terrorism” and warned it could face pre-emptive strikes against militants on its territory, but stopped short of saying it killed a Hamas leader in Damascus.

A senior Israeli defence official today accused Syrian President Bashar Assad of direct involvement in terrorism, but refused to confirm Israel was responsible for killing a Hamas leader in Damascus on Sunday.

Israeli forces killed Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of the violent Hamas movement, in a missile attack in Gaza early today, an attack that is expected to to escalate Palestinian-Israeli violence dramatically.

A SENIOR Israeli official warned that the founder of the Islamic militant group Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, was “marked for death”.

Israel will kill the founder of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, in retaliation for a suicide attack on border guards, Israel’s deputy defence minister said in the bluntest warning yet against leaders of the Islamic militant group.

Israel is set to resume targeted killings of top Hamas militants and levelled a blunt warning to the group’s elderly spiritual leader that he tops the list of those to be hunted and put to death.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is considering dismantling Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip while simultaneously annexing some West Bank settlements, Israeli media reported today.

Israel is in the final stages of legalising new West Bank settlements, a violation of its commitments to the United States and to an internationally backed peace plan.

ISRAEL threatened Syria yesterday after Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon fired anti-aircraft shells that killed an Israeli teenager on Israel’s northern border, but said it hoped to defuse tension through diplomacy.

Israel will not stage a large response to the killing of a teenager by guerilla shelling on the border with Lebanon, officials said today.

ISRAEL yesterday pledged a "war to the bitter end" against Hamas but an opinion poll showed a majority of Israelis oppose the stepped-up attacks on leaders of the militant Islamic group.

YASSER ARAFAT presented a new cabinet on Tuesday and said he remains committed to internal reform, but he accused Israel of demanding change in his government as a pretext for destroying the Palestinian Authority.