PALESTINIAN gunmen killed three Israelis in a drive-by shooting yesterday and Israeli troops shot dead a senior Palestinian militant in an eruption of violence in the occupied West Bank.

Israel demanded tougher action against militants and Palestinians blamed the Jewish state for an escalation in violence after a Palestinian suicide bomber targeted a bus station in Beersheba.

A SUICIDE bomber blew himself up outside an Israeli bus station during morning rush hour yesterday.

A suicide bomber blew himself up outside the central bus station in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba today, wounding at least 10 people, two critically, in the first such attack since Israel began its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip this month.

Responding to a public outcry after a bloody Palestinian attack, Israeli bulldozers began flattening land for a separation barrier in a part of the West Bank that has been ignored up to now.

ISRAEL vowed to hunt down Hamas leaders around the globe and to accelerate construction of its West Bank barrier after Palestinian suicide bombers blew up two buses killing 16 people.

Cartographers have begun moving the planned route of the West Bank separation barrier closer to Israel in line with an Israeli court ruling that the government must reduce hardship for Palestinian residents.

ISRAEL freed more than 300 Palestinian prisoners yesterday, delivering them into the arms of waiting families in near-simultaneous releases across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The first group of more than 300 Palestinian prisoners being released by Israel was driven to freedom today.

Israeli army bulldozers knocked down three Palestinian homes and two shacks today near a Jewish settlement in the southern West Bank, Palestinians said.

ISRAEL yesterday demolished the homes of two Palestinian militants who killed four seminary students when they infiltrated a Jewish settlement last week, the army said.

ISRAELI troops demolished three houses of Palestinian terror suspects yesterday, while Jewish settler leaders inaugurated a new Jewish settlement near the Palestinian city of Nablus.

ISRAEL'S Supreme Court yesterday temporarily halted the expulsion of relatives of Palestinian terror suspects from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip, as troops demolished the homes of two Palestinian militants.

ISRAEL yesterday enforced a "total ban" on Palestinian travel in much of the West Bank and sealed off a chunk of the Gaza Strip with tanks in response to Palestinian attacks on Israelis that killed 13 people over 24 hours.

Israel today enforced a ‘‘total ban’’ on Palestinian travel in much of the West Bank and sealed off a chunk of the Gaza Strip with tanks in response to Palestinian attacks on Israelis that killed 13 people over 24 hours.

PALESTINIAN gunmen opened fire on Friday on two Israeli cars near a Jewish settlement in the southern West Bank, killing four people and injuring three others, the army and rescue officials said.

A Palestinian alleged to be responsible for the death of at 100 Israelis in suicide was killed when an Israeli tank shelled a house in the West Bank city of Nablus.

Israel was today maintaining its grip over West Bank towns, confining at least 700,000 Palestinians to their homes under curfew orders.

Two Jewish settlers were killed and four wounded when Palestinians opened fire on mobile homes in the West Bank early today.

An Israeli shepherd was killed by suspected Palestinian militants as he was tending his flock in the southern West Bank, an Israeli army spokesman said today.