Israeli warplanes destroy 'Hamas house' in the Gaza Strip

Two Israeli F-16 warplanes, supported by helicopters, flattened a three-storey house near Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday. At least 10 Palestinians were wounded by flying debris.

A military spokesman said the building, which was empty at the time of the raid, served as a base for Hamas militants, but declined to confirm an Israel Radio report that it housed an explosives laboratory. The radio, citing security sources, said the plant was run by Yussuf Abdel Wahab, a Hamas leader on Israel's wanted list.

The spokesman's reticence fuelled speculation by other Israeli media that the strike was an attempt to assassinate Mr Abdel Wahab, whose nephew Ahmed lived in the house until he was killed in a gun battle with Israeli troops five months ago.

In the confusion after the attack, a Palestinian man on trial for allegedly collaborating with Israel to kill Palestinians was shot and killed by militants.

The air strike came after Palestinians fired five mortars at a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip. There were no casualties, but damage to a caravan was reported.

Israeli troops and police were on high alert north-east of Tel Aviv, hours after border guards captured a suspected Palestinian suicide bomber between the West Bank village of Anin and the Israeli Arab town of Umm el-Fahm. Intelligence officials said they had received information that a second bomber was on his way.

The first bomber, identified as a 22-year-old from the West Bank town of Nablus, was captured after he fired a Kalashnikov assault rifle at an Israeli army jeep.

Commander Jihad Kabalan, of the paramilitary border police, said the man admitted going to Umm el-Fahm and asking taxi drivers to take him to the Jewish town of Afula, where he intended to spray automatic fire on people having a Saturday night out, then blow himself up. When all the drivers refused, he returned to the West Bank.

He led his captors to an empty house where he had hidden an Israeli army uniform and to an olive grove where he had left an explosives belt.

In Jerusalem, Ariel Sharon's cabinet withdrew its support from a private member's bill to bar Israeli Arab citizens from buying homes in communities built for Jews on publicly-owned land. Ministers voted 22-2 to bury the bill in committee. The measure, denounced by past and present justice ministers as racist, was intended to circumvent a court ruling that such discrimination was unconstitutional.

But the issue has not been settled, and the Prime Minister said he and his government still supported the idea of allowing religious and ethnic groups to have their own communities.

"I don't understand why a Bedouin Arab or Circassian community is legitimate and a Jewish community is racist," Mr Sharon said, quoted by the Cabinet Secretary, Gideon Saar. "Jewish settlement in the state of Israel is the fulfilment of Zionism and is vital for the protection of the state, its security and its borders."