JERUSALEM, 4 June 2004 — Israeli soldiers demolished 18 houses on the outskirts of the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah early yesterday, residents said. The force also blew up what they called a weapons smuggling tunnel running under the border with Egypt, the Israeli Army said.

The soldiers came under fire from local militants and arrested a “wanted” Palestinian in a nearby building, it added. Palestinians said the 18 demolished houses were buildings which had already been partially destroyed during a weeklong offensive in Rafah which ended Monday last week.

An armored force came back overnight and razed them to the ground completely, they said, adding the Israeli Army had done the same to 45 other partially-destroyed buildings in the past three days.

The 63 razed buildings are included in the total of 167 homes which, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, were rendered uninhabitable during the offensive, leaving more than 2,000 people homeless.

A leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades was arrested overnight by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank town of Nablus, sources on both sides said yesterday. Jamal Al-Nabulsi, 38, and Brigades activist Sultan Al-Tashtush were arrested during a raid by the army in the old city, or casbah, area where they had been hiding in a house, Palestinian sources said.

The army said that both Palestinians had been implicated in anti-Israeli attacks. The Al-Aqsa Brigades is an offshoot of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement and has been behind a string of attacks against Israeli targets.

Palestinian security sources said two other militants, including the brother of a wanted Brigades member, had been arrested overnight in Nablus and its adjoining Balata refugee camp.

Palestinian Premier Ahmed Qorei yesterday called for a cease-fire as a first step toward resuming serious negotiations between Palestinians and Israel. “We call for a plan that starts with a serious commitment to a bilateral cease-fire in order to resume negotiations and end the current crises in the region,” he said in a news conference in the town of Abu Dis, east of Jerusalem.

The plan should include an end to the Israeli military siege on the Palestinians and their leadership as well as steps to revive Palestinian industry, he said. He made the statement in a news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s special Middle East envoy Lord Michael Levy, who handed Qorei a letter from Blair stressing the need to resume negotiations.

Top Palestine Liberation Organization member Yasser Abed Rabbo yesterday called for a clear Palestinian position on Sharon’s proposed Gaza pullout plan. “We lack a political program, we lack a political response to Sharon’s plan,” he told delegates at a conference in the West Bank town of Jericho covering the prospects of a negotiated settlement with Israel.

“There are many (Palestinian) voices that are contradicting one another,” he said. “We should see, in Sharon’s plan, the fact he’s speaking of a withdrawal, withdrawing the settlers from Gaza,” he said, while stressing the plan would only be “a partial operation”.