BBC Sunday, 3 June, 2001, 13:22 GMT 14:22 UK

Palestinian uprising 'to go on'

Leaders of Palestinian factions have said they will continue their uprising against Israel after Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat promised an immediate ceasefire.

In a statement, the factions urged Palestinians to continue their protests, stressing the right to "defence against aggression", but it remains unclear whether they plan more bomb attacks.

The decision came after talks o between 13 various groups, among them Hamas and Islamic Jihad, who see attacks on Israel as legitimate forms of resistance.

Mr Arafat announced the ceasefire on Saturday - a day after a suicide bomb attack on a nightclub in Tel Aviv in which 19 Israelis died. Funerals are being held on Sunday.

Palestinian television and radio have already announced a series of measures being taken to implement the ceasefire, including patrols by Palestinian security forces at known points of friction.

The Israeli cabinet has yet to respond to these measures, but reacted with scepticism after Mr Arafat made his call.

Anti-Palestinian feeling in Israel and the territories has been running high since the bombing.

Palestinian radio says two Palestinians were killed by Jewish settlers who fired shots at their lorry near the West Bank town of Ramallah.

But Israeli police said there was no sign of shooting on the bodies or the car.

The test

Mr Arafat has insisted that by bowing to international pressure for a ceasefire, he is acting in the higher interests of the Palestinian people.

But the BBC's Simon Ingram in Jerusalem says many activists are likely to see the move as a surrender - a betrayal of the hundreds of lives lost to Israeli guns and bombs over the past nine months.

Talk before the factions met was uncompromising.

A senior official of Mr Arafat's Fatah faction, Marwan Barghouthi, said: "The intifada [Palestinian uprising] and resistance will continue as long as one Jewish settler and one Israeli soldier remains on our occupied land."

Suffocation

On Saturday, the Israeli Government decided on a series of what Israeli newspapers are describing as suffocation measures aimed at making life difficult for Palestinians.

All international crossing points into the West Bank and Gaza from Jordan and Egypt have been closed until further notice.

Palestinians, including thousands of workers, have been barred from entering Israel. People found working there illegally will be deported.

Reports suggest that for the first time supplies of fuel, oil and gas to the Palestinian Authority are to be halted. International mail services and money transfers into the territories will likewise be blocked.

Our correspondent says the Israelis' calculation is that economic punishment - not to mention the travel ban effectively confining Mr Arafat himself to the West Bank town of Ramallah - will force the Palestinian leader to keep his word and halt the attacks against Israel.

Israel has so far refrained from a military response and universities and other public buildings in the Gaza strip have re-opened after being evacuated.

'Not enough'

Mr Arafat's ceasefire offer does not satisfy a key Israeli demand - the re-arrest of militant leaders released from Palestinian jails at the beginning of the Palestinian uprising.

"The real and only test will be the cessation of terrorism, the arrest of those involved, the inciters, the perpetrators and those behind them," said Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

Many of the 90 Israelis injured by the nails and shrapnel from the Tel Aviv bomb remain in hospital, several in a critical or serious condition.

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2001