Egypt warns against 'grave' Mideast situation

Egypt yesterday warned that the situation in the Middle East is "grave and very bad". "The Israeli practices are unacceptable. It was important that the Israeli side listened to us," said Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher, referring to a brief visit made by Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to Cairo on Sunday.

"We have to wait to see results of Palestinian-Israeli talks," he added in a meeting with ambassadors of major industrialized nations to Cairo. Peres met in Cairo with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat for lengthy talks on more than nine months of turbulence. Maher said that the situation would imnprove only when Israeli practices stopped and negotiations resumed for a final settlement.

"Israeli acts will not lead to ultimate peace," added the Egyptian minister.

He said that Egypt would attend a meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) due in Doha, Qatar, in November.

In the West Bank town of Hebron, Palestinians under Israeli army curfew peered from behind shutters yesterday onto the stone streets of Hebron's Old City, turned into a ghost town after some of the fiercest fighting in the Palestinian revolt. The few allowed to roam in the Israeli-controlled area of the West Bank city were Jewish settlers.

Nine months into a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, the divided city bears some of the brunt of a conflict over religion, land and nationhood.

For the second time in less than a week, Israeli tanks entered the Palestinian-ruled area of Hebron. Overnight they attacked security posts, wounding five people before withdrawing. The Israeli army claimed its incursion was a response to Palestinian gunfire at Israeli security forces and civilians in the city.

Palestinians living in the Israeli-controlled area of Hebron yesterday were kept under a curfew in force since late last week when two Jewish settlers were shot and killed near the city.

In the alleys of the ancient part of the city, there were few signs of the Palestinian residents.

Palestinian children on rooftops peered down on hearing the uncommon sound of footsteps.

"We are under curfew all day, with nothing to do but spend our time monitoring the news," said Palestinian resident Abdel-Raouf Muatasim, as his children craned their necks round the doorway to look at Israeli soldiers outside.

The soldiers sat on street corners under the shade of canopies belonging to abandoned Palestinian shops. One posed for a photograph with a settler carrying an M-16 rifle.

Israel and the Palestinians divided Hebron under a 1997 interim peace deal. Some 400 Jews, including seminary students, live and study in heavily guarded enclaves in the heart of the city, home to more than 120,000 Arabs.

An Israeli army spokesman said Palestinians living in the Israeli-controlled area were put under curfew for security reasons even though the Palestinian gunfire comes from Palestinian-ruled areas.

Palestinians say the measure is collective punishment and contrast it to the treatment of Jewish settlers who are punished individually if they attack Palestinians.

Muatasim, the Palestinian resident, slipped out of doors briefly to show a reporter the front window of his car, smashed with a brick which still lay among shards of glass in the front seat.

"The settlers did that to me two days ago," he said.

Jordanian authorities have, meanwhile, arrested a Lebanese man and seized a cache of mortar bombs bound for the Palestinian territories, Jordan's Prime Minister Ali Abu al-Ragheb said yesterday.

Abu Ragheb confirmed a report in a Lebanese newspaper last week that Jordan had arrested a Lebanese driver who smuggled 25 mortar bombs into the kingdom seemingly en route to the West Bank. The man was detained after entering Jordan from Syria.

"In Jordan we have seen many cases where there has been some smuggling of arms or ammunition...to various factions through Jordan or to Jordan and it's not new," Abu Ragheb told foreign journalists in Amman.

"We deal with these issues maybe on a monthly basis and depends on the size and maybe the last one was a big one compared to others." He refused to give details on who had sent the shipment and who was supposed to receive it.

At least 480 Palestinians, 126 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have been killed since the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation erupted last September after peace talks stalled, an Egyptian report said.