OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 19 February — The Israeli Army yesterday sealed off the West Bank town of Jericho, Palestinian security officials said as four Israelis and two Palestinians were killed in two separate attacks in the West Bank and Gaza Strip yesterday.

In Tel Aviv, Israeli minister without portfolio Danny Naveh told Israel Army radio Israel should reoccupy part of the territories under Palestinian control in order to prevent attacks by Palestinian groups.

The Israeli minister said: “For the first time I propose a partial re-occupation of Zone A territory, as well as much more far-reaching military operations against terrorism.”

Meanwhile, the statement of Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy Premier and commander of the National Guard, was welcomed and backed by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa. Crown Prince Abdullah had said in an interview to The New York Times that the Kingdom would consider normalizing relations with Israel and swaying the Arab League to do the same if Israel carried out a full withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories.

“The important statements of Prince Abdullah... reinforce and represent a support for peace efforts,” Arafat told the Palestinian news agency WAFA.

He underlined the support of his Palestinian Authority for “the positions adopted by Saudi Arabia ... and of Arab leaders in favor of peace.” Amr Moussa said Prince Abdullah’s words “are very clear.” “It’s a clear Arab message, which must be taken into consideration,” he said. “This message means that Israeli obstacles are delaying peace in the Middle East and that we must remove these obstacles if we want to achieve peace,” Moussa said. He said “Arabs are ready to make peace, but a peace based on concluded agreements and one leading to a Palestinian state and an Israeli withdrawal from all Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese territory.”

Palestinians also welcomed remarks by Prince Abdullah. “This is the most important offer that has been made by the Arab world for decades,” senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters.

“Prince Abdullah’s offer is a very significant development that should be considered very seriously by the United States and Israel. (They) must not waste this historic opportunity”.

In Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s spokesman described Prince Abdullah’s remarks as a call to overthrow a legitimate government.

In the daylong violence yesterday, an Israeli woman and two soldiers were killed in a Palestinian attack on a convoy heading across the Gaza Strip to the Jewish settlement of Gadid, settler sources said.

Two Israeli police working on an anonymous tip-off stopped a suspect vehicle on the road linking Jerusalem to the West Bank town of Jericho. As the police questioned the Palestinian driver and searched the vehicle, the man detonated a car bomb, killing himself and one officer. The blast occurred around two kilometers from the Azaim Israeli checkpoint on the road leading southwest to Jericho and the Jewish settlement of Maale Aduumim, some five kilometers down the road.

In another incident, a Jewish settler and several Israeli soldiers were wounded in a shooting ambush by suspected Palestinian attackers on their convoy traveling in the Gaza Strip, Israeli security sources said.

In Ramallah, a Palestinian center for relatives of people killed in the uprising accused Israel yesterday of preventing parents of activists killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers from going on Haj.

In Brussels, the European Union‘s Spanish presidency urged yesterday that EU governments seeking an end to eighteen months of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed must help establish a viable Palestinian state. “There is an urgent need to restore an approach based on political action,” said a new two-page Spanish government paper on a possible European Middle East initiative submitted to EU foreign ministers.