: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is responding to Israeli vows to ignore him for being part of the problem. Arafat is dismissing leaders of intelligence and security organizations the Israelis accuse of participation in terrorist activities. But some of these men refuse to step down, or appear to be doing so in name only.  As many fear, Arafat does not have as much control over forces as he says he does. Meanwhile, Israeli officials are meeting with Palestinian Authority officials (but not Arafat) to try and work out some sort of peace deal.)

The Israeli military operation in Palestinian territory has prevented suicide attacks for 18 days. Some 1800 Palestinians are under arrest, including 300 suspected militants (half of whom were already known to Israeli police. Ten  dozen suicide bombing attacks have been intercepted. Attacks on individual terrorist leaders continue, showing that the Israelis continue to maintain their network of informers and collaborators inside Palestinian territory. A recent attack involved a car bomb that killed several Palestinian terrorist leaders.  

The Palestinian media is running more stories about concern that the suicide bombing campaign is not working and that negotiations might be more likely to achieve results.