Israel may renege on pact

Thousands of police and troops remained on alert everywhere from bus stops to shopping malls despite the expiry of Sunday’s 23.00 IST deadline. Police said they had “a series” of information warning of more attacks.

Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud bloc, told his cabinet on Sunday that Israel would not honour peace deals it signed with Yasser Arafat unless the Palestinian President cracked down on Islamic radicals.

“If Arafat honours his commitments in the agreement, chiefly to fight terrorism, the agreement will survive. If he doesn’t, we will not keep up our part of the bargain unequivocally,” an official statement quoted Netanyahu as saying.

However, the Israeli Prime Minister’s stance has been severely criticised by leader of Israel’s parliamentary opposition.

“Now they are trying to roll everything onto Arafat even before they know where the suicide attackers came from,” Labour party chief Ehud Barak said in Tel Aviv.

Barak, a former army chief of staff who was Netanyahu’s commander in an elite commando unit, was quoted as saying the Prime Minister was “not responsible, not trustworthy, did not stand up to pressure” and that his rule was like “the leadership of a blind goat.” The Israeli army meanwhile, continued with its crackdown by arresting 29 more Palestinians overnight. The fresh arrests have raised the number of those rounded up on the suspicion of belonging to radical groups blamed for Wednesday’s bombing to nearly 200.

The latest arrests were made in the Israeli-controlled areas of the West Bank and that the Army “plans to continue these night-time operations against terrorist groups.’