Israeli forces target disputed east Jerusalem

Israeli police have closed down Palestinian political and police centres in east Jerusalem in response to the suicide bombing which killed 15.

A long series of funerals of victims of the blast started late yesterday.

Among the dead were five members of a family - a father, mother and three small children.

In raids that focused primarily on driving the Palestinians out of key buildings in disputed east Jerusalem, police took over Orient House, the Palestinian political centre.

They arrested seven guards and closed nine other Palestinian offices.

Also, police and soldiers took control of a complex of Palestinian Government buildings in Abu Dis, just outside Jerusalem.

In the West Bank town of Ramallah, just north of Jerusalem, an Israeli air strike carried out with F-16 warplanes destroyed a Palestinian police building.

A statement from the Israeli military said the air strike followed "involvement of Palestinian policemen in terrorist activity".

The move was certain to spark a confrontation with the Palestinians, who are demanding east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

Israel has controlled all of the city since capturing the eastern sector in the 1967 Middle East war, and the city's future was one of the most contentious issues in the peace negotiations that have collapsed.

After a special session of the Israeli security Cabinet that stretched into the early hours of Friday, Cabinet secretary Gideon Saar said the police and military operations were "intended to motivate the Palestinian Authority to carry out its commitments to fight against terror, to fight against violence, and honour the agreements it signed".