Ceasefire under threat as Jewish anger mounts over attacks

Israeli Cabinet ministers are joining Jewish settlers in urging their leaders to rethink their agreement to a US-sponsored truce with the Palestinians, following a string of Palestinian gun and mortar attacks.

Israel’s security Cabinet was meeting today to reassess Israel’s policy of not hitting back in retaliation for Palestinian attacks.

But interior minister Eli Yishai, a member of the security Cabinet made up of senior ministers, claimed Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had not changed his strategic decision to try to make political gains through violence. "Enough of this policy of restraint," Yishai said.

The truce, negotiated last week by CIA director George Tenet, was wobbling badly, with five mortar shells landing near a Jewish settlement in Gaza yesterday.

Maj Gen Amos Malka, chief of Israeli military intelligence, has "concluded that there is no ceasefire", said parliament speaker Avraham Burg. In Washington, Burg stopped a speech to read a note handed to him, apparently about Malka’s testimony.

Some Palestinians said openly that the ceasefire did not apply to settlers, Jewish Israelis who live in areas in West Bank and Gaza claimed by the Palestinians.

At least 27 have been killed in ambushes and drive-by shootings since hostilities erupted last September. Two died on Monday, the first fatal attacks since the ceasefire came into effect last Wednesday.

"We said from the beginning that there is no ceasefire for the settlers," Ziad Abu-Ain, a leader of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement in the West Bank, said.

Fatah has claimed responsibility for both settler killings.

In Madrid, Spain, Arafat blamed the settlers for the violence, but added: "I promise, personally, and in the name of the Palestinian people, that we will do everything we can to be able to control the situation on our part with all the measures and tools at our disposal."

Palestinians claim Israel has not upheld its end of the bargain to lift travel restrictions and remove roadblocks in the West Bank and Gaza. They also complain that settler vigilantes have been attacking Palestinians and damaging their property.

Prime minister Ariel Sharon declared a unilateral ceasefire on May 22, halting Israeli air strikes against Palestinian police structures in retaliation for attacks. But the policy has come under increasing fire as Israeli casualties mount.

"There should be no doubt that, if the Palestinians don’t act to prevent terror attacks, we will reconsider the situation and the actions Israel will take to protect its citizens," Israeli Cabinet minister Danny Naveh said.

Collapse of the ceasefire would be a blow to US president George W Bush’s administration. After several months on the sidelines of the Middle East conflict, Bush sent Tenet to negotiate the truce.

Sharon is due to visit Washington next week.