RAMALLAH, Feb 25: The Palestinians angrily suspended security talks with Israel on Sunday after it decided to keep Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat blockaded in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Israel described the cabinet decision to allow Arafat to leave his compound in Ramallah but keep him inside the town where he has been penned in by Israeli tanks since early December as goodwill gesture.

It followed Arafat’s arrest last week of three hardliners from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the movement accused of assassinating an Israeli minister in October.

But the Palestinians slammed the move and in retaliation suspended security cooperation with Israel.

“This is a shameful decision. It is unacceptable, and a clear message that this government does not want a ceasefire, it does not want calm,” chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat charged.

The Palestinian leadership said it “rejects and denounces the Israeli government decision to continue imposing its siege on the president and Palestinian towns and areas at the same time as it continues its daily aggressions”.

The statement stopped short of confirming top Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rudeina’s warning that there would be no more political or security meetings with Israel until it reversed its decision.

Arafat has already arrested the PFLP leader’s new leader, Ahmed Saadat, and detained him in his own compound.

French President Jacques Chirac and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, meanwhile, appealed for international action to prevent the Middle East conflict spinning out of control, Chirac’s office said.

The two men “expressed their deep concern about the situation in the Middle East” in a telephone conversation Sunday, it said.

“The priority is to return to the spirit of the peace process and to find a political solution,” Chirac’s office said.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana was due to fly into the region later Sunday ahead of talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Five Killed: Two Jewish settlers and three Palestinians were killed on Monday in a rash of violence across the West Bank, while six Israelis were seriously injured in occupied Al Quds when a Palestinian opened fire.

The West Bank shootings also injured two pregnant women — one Israeli, one Palestinian — although their babies were delivered safely.

The two settler men were killed and a pregnant woman seriously injured when Palestinian guerillas carried out a drive-by shooting attack on their car between the Jewish settlements of Teqoa and Noqdim, to the southeast of Bethlehem in the West Bank.

The woman underwent an emergency caesarian section and gave birth to a girl, settlers said.

In a telephone call, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a radical offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Earlier in the day, Palestinian Mohammed Hayek, 22, was shot dead by Israeli troops at a roadblock near Hawwara, outside Nablus, while taking his pregnant wife to hospital, Palestinian medics said.

His wife and father were also injured in the incident, but his daughter was born saftely shortly afterwards in Nablus hopsital.

Another pregnant Palestinian woman was shot and injured at the same checkpoint on Sunday.

The Israeli army said “preliminary” information showed the car tried to force its way through the roadblock, and Israeli soldiers fired warning shots before shooting at the vehicle.

A Palestinian woman was also killed at a checkpoint near the West Bank town of Tulkarem after she tried to stab Israeli troops, Israeli public radio reported.

Troops fired warning shots and then aimed for her legs before killing the woman, according to the report.

And a Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli police after injuring around eight Israelis in a shooting attack at a bus stop in occupied Al Quds on Monday, public radio said.—AFP