The Israeli cabinet today agreed more measures aimed at curtailing the movement of Palestinians amid further complaints about their latest wave of incursions.
Overnight, Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers, pushed into Qalqilya in the West Bank in the wake of the Defence Ministry's threat of a "crushing offensive".
The Israeli army also said it was calling up a brigade of reservists following a series of incursions throughout the West Bank cities yesterday.
Today, Jordanian Foreign Minister Mr Marwan Moasher condemned the reoccupation, after talks with Palestinian chairman Mr Yasser Arafat.
Mr Moasher warned that Israel could be "setting back the hands of the clock" in the Middle East conflict.
"There can be no talk about a re-occupation of Palestinian towns. We cannot restore the [Israeli] civilian administration of the West Bank, which is in fact a military administration," Mr Moasher said.
Yesterday, the director general of the Israeli defence ministry, Mr Amos Yaron, suggested the government could take on an administrative role but today his ministry rejected the idea.
"It is certainly not our intention to reinstall a government or military administration by Israel for the inhabitants of the autonomous Palestinian cities where the army has intervened to fight terrorism," it said in a statement.
However, the Israeli cabinet today agreed further measures against Palestinians, including the expulsion from Israel of relatives of Palestinian suicide bombers.
The cabinet also voted to go ahead with construction of a controversial security barrier along the "green line" separating Israel and the West Bank.
The decisions were taken at the regular weekly meeting of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's cabinet following a week of suicide bombings and attacks that left 31 Israelis dead.
Meanwhile, Palestinian security services on the Gaza Strip arrested several Hamas members as well as the head of Al-Khalas, an Islamic party linked to Hamas.
The party reacted angrily to the arrest saying the Palestinian Authority "must free immediately the party's secretary general and stop bowing to American and Zionist provocation that is aimed at sapping our unity".
AFP &