Months after Ariel Sharon announced his dramatic plan to pull Jewish settlers out of Gaza, portraying it as a sacrifice for peace, the government is grabbing more land for West Bank settlements.
Israeli peace groups and Palestinian officials say thousands of homes are under construction in the main settlements, in addition to an expansion of Jewish outposts that are illegal under Israeli law. Mr Sharon has promised the US he will dismantle the outposts, which are usually clusters of containers or trailer homes serviced by government-built roads, but has failed to do so.
One Israeli group, Settlement Watch, says in the three months to May, West Bank settlements expanded by 26 hectares (65 acres).The government has approved construction of thousands more homes in the three main settlement blocs on the West Bank, encouraged by an apparent endorsement by George Bush for their eventual annexation.
In a letter to Mr Sharon, Mr Bush praised the Gaza pullout and agreed that "in light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centres", it was unrealistic to expect a full return to the 1967 borders.
Dror Etkes, head of Settlement Watch, said that the expansion of Jewish outposts and continuing house building since Mr Sharon announced his plan in December was evidence that the government was seeking more territory.
"The government is trying to push the boundaries of the settlements as much as possible before they are frozen," he said. "The new rule of the game we have seen in past weeks is the diameter of permitted construction area in the West Bank has grown. The purpose is to expand as fast as possible because of negotiations with the US to limit future construction to areas already under construction."
South African law professor John Dugard, the special rapporteur for the United Nations on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, has written in a report to the UN General Assembly that there is "an apartheid regime" in the territories "worse than the one that existed in South Africa."
As an example, Dugard points to the roads only open to settlers, from which Palestinians are banned.
In his report, presented early this month, Dugard is highly critical of Israel for its "continuing violations of human rights in the territories." He said Israel is blatantly violating the International Court of Justice's ruling on the separation fence, and has declared it will not obey it.
The report was disseminated among the member countries ahead of the September General Assembly session meant to discuss the fence.
Dugard was a member of a Truth Commission at the end of the apartheid regime, and was appointed by the UN in 2001 as special rapporteur for human rights in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
He called for a general arms embargo against Israel in May, in response to the IDF operations in Rafah, similar to the arms embargo imposed on South Africa in 1977.
According to government sources in Jerusalem, Israel is currently leaning toward cooperating with the various rapporteurs of the UN, and responding to their questions and requests.
But there are two exceptions to that rule: Dugard, and the special rapporteur for food, Jean Zigler. Israel refuses to cooperate with them because of the language of their mandates, and what it regards as their unfair approach. According to the sources, Dugard's assignment was phrased in a way that discriminates against Israel.
But the government does not prevent Dugard from traveling in the territories and Israel, to meet people and to report as he wishes.
Some 800 Palestinian detainees in Israel's Ashkelon prison have suspended their 13-day-old hunger strike until Monday after some of their demands were met.
The concessions made by the prison governor affect only the Ashkelon detainees, and the other 3200 Palestinian prisoners who have been protesting for better conditions remain on hunger strike, the Bethlehem-based Palestinian prisoners' association said on Friday.
The association said the prison authorities had agreed to end practices of placing in small cells those prisoners who were being disciplined, as well as of "humiliating" body searches of prisoners who had been stripped naked.
The prison would also provide better food and relax restrictions on visits by prisoners' relatives.
Pursuing talks
The suspension of the strike until Monday was to allow prisoners to pursue talks with the authorities on other demands, as well as to see whether the improved measures would be extended to other facilities, the group said.
Some 8000 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons, with up to a half thought to have been refusing food.
More than 13 international organisations operating in the Palestinian territories have expressed concern over the strike.
The Israeli government had said it would not negotiate with the prisoners, and Public Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi had said he is prepared to watch them die.
UN call
But in a statement issued on Friday, the UN's top envoy to the region urged Israel to resolve its dispute with the prisoners and guarantee their health.
Terje Roed-Larsen "called on the Israeli authorities to comply with its international obligations and to make every effort to find, with the prisoners, an appropriate resolution to the hunger strike".
"The UN agencies and offices remind Israel of its obligations under the fourth Geneva Convention and relevant international human rights instruments which provide for the protection of detainees and prisoners," he added.
US examines 'Israeli spy' claim
The FBI is investigating reports that a highly placed Pentagon official spied for Israel, the US defence department has confirmed.
The FBI reportedly suspects the analyst gave Israel access to secret material regarding US policy towards Iran.
US broadcaster CBS television said the suspect has ties to leading officials at the Pentagon.
Israel, a close US ally, has described the spying allegation as "completely false and outrageous".
The suspected spy is said to have links to Douglas Feith, a key adviser to Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Mr Feith, along with Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, is believed to have played a key role in planning the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
An arrest could be made as early as next week, according to an official interviewed by the Associated Press news agency.
'Directive leaked'
The BBC's Nick Childs in Washington says this is potentially a very serious development because Israel is one of America's closest allies.
However, he adds that Israel has been accused of spying on the US before.
A former US navy intelligence analyst, Jonathan Pollard, was arrested in 1985 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Citing unnamed sources, CBS reports that the alleged Pentagon spy handed over the draft of a US presidential directive concerning policy towards Iran last year.
"This put the Israelis - according to one of our sources - 'inside the decision-making loop' so they could 'try to influence the outcome'," the television report said.
Nuclear nerves
The investigation into the alleged spy apparently involved the use of electronic surveillance devices, including wiretaps.
An anonymous security official interviewed by AP appears to confirm a claim in the CBS report that the alleged spy is thought to have passed on the classified information to a pro-Israel lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac).
However, Aipac spokesman Josh Block said the claim was "baseless and false".
He said the group "would not condone or tolerate for a second any violation of US law or interests".
David Siegel, a spokesman for Israel's embassy in Washington said it "categorically" denied the allegations.
Iran and Israel are openly suspicious of each other's nuclear intentions and capabilities.
Israel has said it will carry out a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear reactors if it feels threatened. Iran, in turn, has warned it will hit back with a similar strike on Israel.
At least 12 people were killed and 50 others wounded in near-simultaneous explosions on two buses in the southern Israeli city of Beer Sheva Tuesday, Israeli police and ambulance services said.
Television pictures from the scene showed emergency personnel attending the wounded and burning wreckage. The explosions took place near the city center.
Police could not say whether the blasts were the result of suicide bombings.
The Palestinian Authority immediately condemned the attacks and the targeting of any civilians -- Israelis or Palestinians.
Authorities in Beer Sheva said there has never been a suicide bombing in this working-class city, the capital of the Negev desert with a population of about 200,000 people.
Attacks few in past months
There have only been a few attacks in Israel since late winter.
On July 11, a bombing at a Tel Aviv bus stop killed a woman and wounded more than 20 other people.
On April 17, military officials said, a suicide bomber launched an attack inside the Erez industrial zone at the Israel-Gaza border, killing a border police officer and wounding three others.
And on March 14, twin suicide bombs in the Israeli port city of Ashdod killed 10 people and wounded over 20.
The explosion came on a day that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced a timetable for his plan to disengage -- withdrawing all settlers and soldiers from Gaza and portions of the West Bank.
Sharon said he plans for the law authorizing the disengagement to go before Israel's parliament on November 3.
Three explosions shook popular resorts on Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Thursday night, as many Israelis were vacationing Thursday night at the close of a Jewish holiday.
.
The first blast shook the Hilton hotel in the Taba resort, only meters from the Israeli border. Israeli medics said they had transferred 22 wounded people to hospitals, but there were believed to be many more. Witnesses said there were people trapped under the ruins of the western side of the hotel.
.
Egyptian security officials said there were ?'?'a large number of wounded.'' Israel sent ambulances and helicopters to evacuate the wounded.
.
?'?'The whole front of the hotel has collapsed. There are dozens of people on the floor, lots of blood. It is very tense,'' witness Yigal Vakni told Israel's Army Radio. ?'?'I am standing outside of the hotel, the whole thing is burning and they have nothing to put it out with.''
.
Two smaller blasts occurred about two hours later in the area of Ras al Shitan, a camping area near the town of Nuweiba full of Israeli tourists, south of Taba, witnesses said. A security official in Nuweiba said many people were injured, but he didn't know of any dead.
.
?'?'I heard one very big explosion coming from Taba direction and then, after a while, I heard two smaller explosions from Nuweiba,'' near Ras al Shitan, human rights activist Abdel Raziq said by telephone.
.
Egyptian security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Taba explosion occurred among gas tanks in the kitchen of the hotel, which is next to the casino where many tourists were at the time of the blast.
.
They said they had no initial indications that the blast was due to terrorism.
.
However, the Haaretz newspaper in Israel said the blast took place in the lobby of the hotel, causing the ceiling to collapse, followed by a fire and the evacuation of guests on upper floors through the emergency exits. The newspaper quoted Israeli security sources as saying there is a growing conviction that the explosion was caused by a terrorist attack.
.
Mahmoud Saleh, an employee at the hotel, said he was in the storeroom when the blast occurred.
.
?'?'I saw some some people hurt and I expect there were some people killed, including Egyptians and Israelis,'' he said. He was not hurt.
.
Israeli medics drove ambulances across the border to pick up the wounded while other medics were flown to Eilat, just across the border from Taba. The army also sent two helicopters to airlift the wounded to hospitals in Israel.
.
The Taba explosion could be heard and felt strongly 1½ kilometers (a mile) from the hotel, said Selma Abu el-Dahab, who works at another Taba hotel. She said a worker from her hotel returned from the Hilton and told of the explosion before collapsing.
.
Taba is the main crossing between Israel and Egypt and the gateway for thousands of Israelis who travel to the hotels and resorts on the Red Sea. Thursday is the last day of the weeklong Jewish festival of Sukkot, when thousands of Israelis vacation in the Sinai.
.
Egyptians also were in the midst of a long holiday weekend marking the anniversary of the start of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, so popular resort towns along the Sinai coast were packed.
.
Vakni said most of the people at the Hilton were Israeli.
.
?'?'I was in the casino when it happened,'' he said. ?'?'There was a massive explosion and the left wall came down. People started to run around like crazy.''
.
On Sept. 9, the Israeli government urged citizens not to visit Egypt, citing a ?'?'concrete'' terror threat to tourists in an area.
.
The warning, issued by the counter-terrorism center in the Prime Minister's office, identified Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, where Taba is located, as the target of a potential attack.
.
?'?'Recently a concrete possibility has emerged that terrorists will try to attack tourist centers in Egypt, especially the Sinai,'' the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement published on its Web site.
.
What do you think of his chances of pulling it off?
