April, 2001, 15:42 GMT 16:42 UK

Blast rocks West Bank city

Burning tyres have been hurled at Israeli troops in Hebron An explosion has ripped through an office of the Palestinian security service Force 17 in Ramallah, injuring three officers.

Some reports said the rush hour blast appeared to come from inside the two-storey building, blowing part of the roof off and leaving the street strewn with rubble.

Both Palestinian and Israeli officials said the incident was shrouded in mystery, although the head of Palestinian intelligence in the West Bank said such explosions "are usually carried out by Israel".

The blast follows reports that Israeli tanks fired on a Palestinian police post in northern Gaza - in an area that earlier in the week Israeli troops re-occupied for 24 hours, provoking harsh international criticism.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has coming under increasing pressure over recent army incursions into Palestinian-ruled areas, amid renewed calls for restraint from the Washington.

His inner security cabinet met on Thursday. It was expected to discuss whether or not to scale down his controversial new policy, although no decisions were announced.

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Mr Sharon spoke to US President George Bush by telephone on Wednesday night and they "agreed on the need for restraint by all parties to avoid further escalation in the area," according to the White House.

The call follows an unusually harsh criticism of Israel by the US, but the Israeli Government insists it will use whatever means it considers necessary to protects its citizens.

The authorities in Gaza, meanwhile, say they are unable to prevent armed Palestinians retaliating against what they consider to be state terror on the part of Israel.

US rebukes

The BBC's Jeremy Cooke says Mr Sharon's dilemma is that if he responds with further violence over Palestinian attacks he will risk damaging Israel's relations with Washington. If he does not retaliate his opponents will accuse him of bowing to US pressure.

Israel raised the stakes on Monday when its troops reoccupied 2.5 square kilometres (one square mile) of Palestinian territory at Beit Hanoun in eastern Gaza.

It was the first time Israeli troops had re-entered the 70% of Gaza controlled by the Palestinian Authority for any length of time since it was handed over in 1994 under the Oslo peace accords.

The Israeli forces withdrew 24 hours later after US Secretary of State Colin Powell criticised the operation as "excessive and disproportionate".

The six-and-a-half month uprising in the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel seized during the 1967 war, has cost more than 470 lives, most of them Palestinians killed by Israeli troops, but also about 70 of them Israelis killed by Palestinians.

UN blocked in Gaza

The United Nations has filed a complaint to the Israeli army after soldiers in a tank blocked an official convoy at a roadblock in the Gaza strip.

Peter Hansen, the head of Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, was travelling to Rafah where Israeli forces entered a Palestinian camp and demolished refugees' homes last week.

"I have asked for an explanation but they have not provided anything. They were just refusing to let us through," Mr Hansen said.

An Israeli spokesman said free passage was given to all humanitarian groups and the UN, but the convoy was held up because there had been no "prior co-ordination".

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001

Answers

ET Israelis deny blast at Force 17 HQ was their work
By Alan Philps in Ramallah West Bank A HUGE explosion yesterday blew off the roof of a building in Ramallah used by Force 17, the Palestinian presidential guard, but Israel denied responsibility and said it was caused by explosives on the top floor. Witnesses said three people were injured. Palestinian security officials claimed that an Israeli helicopter had fired a missile at a car on the street. But the army said it had no connection with the incident, the second involving major explosions at a Force 17 installation. An army spokesman said: "Reports of a helicopter in the area are completely untrue. I think they were preparing explosives for a car bomb in the building." Neighbours said a smaller explosion was heard from the building on Wednesday, but caused no damage. President Bush, meanwhile, spoke to the Syrian President, Bashar Al-Assad, to appeal for calm. Mr Assad has vowed that Syria will "not stand idly by" following Israel's bombing of its radar station on Mount Lebanon on Sunday. Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, also made a public effort to prevent an escalation, ordering his police to prevent mortar bombs from being fired at targets in Israel. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Brussels writes: The European Union condemned the Israeli occupation of Palestinian-controlled territories yesterday in unusually harsh language agreed by all 15 members states. The EU said Israel's 24-hour incursion into the Gaza Strip on Monday and its attacks on Syrian targets in Lebanon were "excessive and disproportionate". The Gaza incursion was "illegal and must not be repeated". Reijo Kempinnen, the European Commission's foreign affairs spokesman, said the EU could cancel an association agreement, which would effectively the deprive Israel of open trade access; but it is thought unlikely that Germany, Holland and Britain would be willing to go that far.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001