Israeli troops storm Jenin as Arafat plans new cabinet

ISRAELI troops blew up the West Bank homes of two Hamas suicide bombers yesterday and searched a town for fugitives, as Yasser Arafat and leaders of his Fatah party started putting together a new cabinet.

The Palestinian prime minister-designate, Ahmed Qureia, has given Arafat and Fatah considerable say over the composition of his government. Qureia has said he wants to avoid confrontations with Arafat that helped bring down his predecessor, Mahmoud Abbas.

Arafat's central role in forging the new governing team flew in the face of criticism from Israel and the United States, who charge that he is tainted by terrorism. Both nations are boycotting Arafat and want him sidelined from involvement in diplomacy.

Arafat's standing among his people improved considerably following Israel's threat to "remove" him, possibly by expulsion or assassination. Arafat and Abbas, who resigned September 6, had been locked in a struggle over authority, with the veteran Palestinian leader refusing to relinquish control over security forces.

Some 70 Fatah leaders met for six hours late on Thursday, discussing the basic guidelines for the new Government, to be headed by Qureia. Participants said the makeup of the Cabinet was discussed, but a list of ministers was not drawn up.

"There are different camps in Fatah and each camp has different opinions on what this government should look like and what policies it should have," Amin Maqboul, a Fatah leader in the West Bank, said yesterday. Maqboul said younger Fatah members wanted new faces in the Cabinet, while others resisted changes.

Arafat has tried in the past to try to persuade Hamas and Islamic Jihad to join his Government, as a way of co-opting them. However, the militants have refused, saying they want nothing to do with the Palestinian Authority, which was created as part of interim peace deals with Israel.

Yet Hamas has hinted in recent months that it might soften its position.

In other developments, Israeli troops in armoured vehicles entered the town of Jenin and an adjacent refugee camp on Thursday, took over eight homes and conducted searches.

Early yesterday, soldiers demolished the house of Shadi al-Tubasi, who blew himself up at a cafe in the Israeli port city of Haifa in March 2002, killing 15 Israelis.

Israeli troops also went into Rantis, a village north of Ramallah, and destroyed the house of Iyhad Abed al-Kader Abu Salim, a Hamas member who killed eight soldiers in a September 9 suicide bombing at a bus stop south of Tel Aviv.

Palestinian police clashed with Hamas supporters in Gaza after Palestinian security arrested seven Hamas members in connection with the kidnapping of a police officer a day earlier. Fifteen protesters were wounded, one seriously, and two Palestinian police were hurt by rocks, witnesses and hospital officials said.

Israel's renewed military activity in recent days in the West Bank and Gaza comes about a month after a unilateral truce called by militant groups in June collapsed in a spasm of violence.