Israelis destroy suspect's home

Israeli tanks entered the West Bank yesterday to destroy the home of a man accused of planning a gun attack.

Security forces demolished the family home of Nathir Hamad, 27, in the village of Araqa, and also arrested 12 other Palestinian militants.

The Israelis alleged that Mr Hamad helped organise a terrorist attack early last month in which a gunman disguised as an Israeli soldier opened fire in a bus station in northern Israel. Three people were killed and 14 wounded.

The Israeli security forces withdrew after the raid, but their incursion will increase tensions in the area and raise concerns in Britain and the US about the strategy of the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, of targeted attacks and assassinations on Palestinian terrorist suspects.

Israel withdrew its forces from four towns in the Palestinian Authority-controlled areas last week. But it still occupies Jenin and Tulkarem, which it entered after the Israeli tourism minister, Rechavam Zeevi, was murdered on 17 October. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said it killed him in retaliation for Israel's assassination of its political chief in August.

Shimon Peres, the Israeli Foreign Minister, has suggested that fresh peace talks on a Palestinian state could start within weeks after he met a senior aide to Yasser Arafat. Mr Sharon is extremely hostile to attempts to broker a mutual agreement with the Palestinians, but Mr Peres said both sides might be "a little closer than I thought" in their conditions for a renewal of peace talks.