Abbas snaps ties with militants

Israeli leader Ariel Sharon met his top security officials to discuss what action to take over Tuesday's attack, one of the worst in a 34-month-old Palestinian uprising for statehood.

It dealt a critical blow at a US-backed "road map" to peace.

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Abbas's move, a key demand in the peace plan, came after Israel suspended talks to hand over occupied cities to Palestinian authorities and reimposed a total military closure on West Bank cities.

The attack on the bus packed with ultra-Orthodox Jewish families returning from a daily pilgrimage to Jerusalem's Western Wall shrine -- the Wailing Wall -- dealt a critical blow to a seven-week-old cease-fire underpinning the peace plan.

It was also a major embarrassment to Abbas's moderate government and its effort to staunch violence to qualify for statehood promised by the road map, for it came while he was talking with militant leaders on extending the truce.

"It was decided after these meetings that the Palestinian Authority would stop all forms of dialogue with Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. It holds them responsible for harming the higher national interest of the Palestinian people," a senior security official told Reuters.

"Soon the Palestinian Authority will take security measures against Hamas and Islamic Jihad members," he added.

It was unclear how he would carry out the commitment as Palestinian security forces were decimated in the West Bank by Israeli army offensives against militants, and most recent attacks have emanated from cities under Israeli army occupation.

Abbas condemned the bus blast, saying it "does not serve the interests of the Palestinian people."

He has denounced previous bombings in similar terms. But to date he has hesitated to break up the popular militant groups, citing a fear of civil war unless Israel has lifted occupations and checkpoints of West Bank cities first.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad both said they carried out Tuesday's evening's bombing, which left children among the dead and about 100 people wounded. Severed arms, legs and a lower torso lay scattered across a small roundabout next to a synagogue.

A videotape released by Hamas in the West Bank city of Hebron showed a man who named himself as Raed Abdel-Hamid Mask and said he would carry out the suicide bombing to avenge Israel's killing of a past Hamas cell commander there.

AFP from Jerusalem reports: Israel clamped a tight security cordon around Palestinian areas yesterday as it mulled its response to a massive suicide bomb that left US-backed peace efforts in their biggest crisis to date.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was to meet with ministers and security chiefs after freezing all contacts with the Palestinian Authority in the wake of the bus blast, which police said killed at least 18 people and the bomber.

The Israelis had been set to pull back from two West Bank towns but Tuesday night's bombing of a packed bus in an ultra-orthodox neighbourhood of central Jerusalem prompted the Jewish state to tighten security instead.

"A general closure has been enforced (in the West Bank and Gaza Strip) during the night," an army spokesman told AFP.

Israeli papers yesterday registered shock at the latest attack, which killed several children, including an 18-month-old boy. Forty youngsters were among the 120 wounded, officials said.

The banner headline in the Maariv daily read "The Murder of the Children." Top-selling Yediot Aharonot summed up the attack with the words "Terror Returns to Jerusalem".

Sharon was due to meet yesterday morning with army Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon, the head of the domestic Shin Beth security service, Avi Dichter, and Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz to consider the next move.

A senior government official told AFP yesterday Sharon had decided to freeze all contacts with the Palestinian leadership as the attack had demonstrated Abbas' failure to deal with the men of violence.

"They (Abbas' government) have to decide whether they want peace with the terror organisations or with Israel. The pair do not go together," said the deputy director of the foreign ministry, Gideon Meir.