Israel demolishes homes of wanted Palestinians

One house in the central West Bank city of Ramallah was brought to the ground after being packed with explosives. It had been the home of to Jidan Ramadan, a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

The home of Islamic Jihad activist Hussam Abed was also destroyed in a similiar fashion in the northern city of Jenin. Abed is suspected of involvement in a suicide attack in Israel last year.

The two buildings had been home to more than 20 people, according to the witnesses.

The army said that the demolitions served as a "message to terrorists and their accomplices that there is a price to pay for their acts".

The army also announced that four wanted Palestinians had been arrested overnight in the West Bank while two Israelis were lightly injured in a shooting attack on their car near the settlement of Ariel.

The Al-Aqsa Brigades, which is loosely linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the shooting.

Meanwhile Palestinian sources in Gaza said that troops had withdrawn from an area close to the Kissufim checkpoint where they had been operating since dawn on Tuesday. Five houses had been made uninhabitable while dozens of dunams of land had been destroyed by army bulldozers, they said.

The Israeli army said that the operation had been launched after a number of attacks against settlers in the region in recent weeks.

More than 70 percent of Israelis favour the main opposition Labour party joining a new coalition government under right-wing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a poll in the Maariv daily showed yesterday.

A total of 71 percent of those questioned said they were in favour of Sharon forming a national unity government with Labour while only 29 percent wanted the premier to form a new alliance with the religious right at the expense of Labour and the secular Shinui party.