Arafat travel ban could be lifted after arrests - Sharon

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he is ready to lift the virtual house arrest of Yasser Arafat, but military strikes against Palestinian targets will go on.

Arafat has been confined to his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah by Israeli tanks for three months. A condition for his release was the arrest of militants who killed a Cabinet minister in October.

‘‘People have been arrested,’’ Sharon said. ‘‘I have said that after they are arrested, we shall let him out of there.’’

Hard-line Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi was shot dead in a Jerusalem hotel in October.

Sharon also said he was dropping Israel’s demand for a full seven days without violence before beginning formal truce talks.

The gestures toward the Palestinians appeared likely to cost Sharon the support of the most hawkish wing of his broad-based coalition government.

Cabinet minister Benny Eilon of the National Union bloc said he and fellow minister Avigdor Lieberman would submit their resignations from Sharon’s ruling team tomorrow.

Early today, Israeli tanks and troops entered the West Bank town of Qalqilya from all sides, residents said. The army said they were ‘‘searching for terrorists, weapons and terrorist infrastructure.’’ Similar operations took place in the Deheishe refugee camp next to Bethlehem, they said.

Israeli warplanes and helicopters pounded Palestinian buildings in the West Bank and Gaza Strip yesterday, after two Palestinian attacks the day before that killed 13 Israelis.

Yesterday in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian gunman shot and killed a soldier guarding a Jewish settlement before another soldier shot the assailant dead.

Also yesterday, Israeli police shot and killed a Palestinian at a roadblock north of Jerusalem.

Police said he ignored orders to halt. They said they found an assault rifle, ammunition and hand grenades in a large bag he was carrying.

Casualties have increased sharply on both sides through two weeks of rapidly escalating violence.

US President George Bush said he would send special envoy Anthony Zinni back for a third attempt at achieving a truce, and US Secretary of State Colin Powell said he would not be deterred by the violence.

Zinni is ‘‘going to stay in the region and fight his way through this,’’ Powell said. The envoy’s two previous missions faltered in crescendos of violence that accompanied his talks.

Also heading for the region was US Vice President Dick Cheney, who planned to visit nine Arab countries and Israel after meeting British Prime Minister Tony Balir in London today.

Cheney will discuss Palestinian-Israeli violence ‘‘at every stop,’’ Powell said, though the Vice President’s main mission is said to be sounding out Arab support for an offensive on Iraq as part of the US-led war on terror.

In Egypt, meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal offered Israel ‘‘complete peace from Arab nations’’ in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from Arab lands captured in 1967, and the creation of an independent Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital.

Al-Faisal, who spoke after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, offered the most detailed Saudi comments on the kingdom’s overture to Israel since it was first made public last month. Israel has expressed strong reservations, but said it is willing to explore the proposal.