Thousands of unpaid teachers have begun the Palestinian school year with a strike that shut down classrooms across the West Bank and Gaza – a backlash that is testing the beleaguered Hamas-led government’s ability to survive.

America said today it would oppose any Israeli strike against Yasser Arafat, after Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon said he was no longer bound by a promise to Washington not to harm the Palestinian leader.

THE man who carried out yesterday's suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv beachfront pub was a British citizen, as was an additional terrorist who managed to flee when his explosive device did not detonate, Israeli media reported last night.

Israeli tanks rolled into a Palestinian village on the southern fringes of Jerusalem today, killing a Palestinian, in an effort to halt persistent gunfire raining on a nearby Jewish neighbourhood.