TEL AVIV, Jan 30: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon late on Tuesday approved a plan to strengthen occupied Al Quds’s security with a series of new defensive measures, including stretches on wall in the north and south and obstacles and checkpoints around other areas.

The proposals to cut off the city’s mostly Arab eastern half from the West Bank went under the premier’s scrutiny on Tuesday as Palestinian shooting damaged six houses in the Jewish settlement of Gilo, on the city’s southwestern flank.

The right-wing premier said the suburbs of the holy city’s eastern sector “should be included in Greater Jerusalem (Al Quds)” but only at the security level, thus ruling out an annexation.

The plan to “envelop” the battered city would include Jewish settlements outside the capital’s jurisdiction as well as the Palestinian districts in areas under Israeli security control, but whose civil administration is in the Palestinians’ hands.

The city’s eastern sector, including the Old City and its Jewish, Islamic and Christian holy sites, was seized by Israel in the 1967 war and subsequently annexed.

The Palestinians see it as the capital of their future independent state.

The plan still has to be approved by Israel’s 13-member security cabinet.

HAMAS, JIHAD: Palestinian groups on Wednesday rejected thinly veiled threats from US President George W. Bush, saying that with its terrorism charges Washington was only providing political cover for Israel.