Israel suspends plans to ease crackdown after bombings

ISRAEL suspended plans yesterday to ease a military crackdown in the West Bank and pursue talks with moderate Palestinians after a double suicide bombing killed three people in Tel Aviv.

The almost simultaneous Palestinian attacks on Wednesday night followed a bus ambush that killed seven Israelis near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank on Tuesday, ending a month of relative calm and undermining hopes of reviving peacemaking.

Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer's office said that plans had been drawn up to relax restrictions imposed on Palestinian civilians after the army reoccupied seven West Bank cities last month, but they had now been frozen.