HIGHLIGHTS: Incursions into Hebron, Jenin & Rafah||Two Palestinians Killed, Four Wounded & 17 Detained||Unconfirmed Reports Palestinian Voting Body Resigned||STORY: Israel appears to have decided to put the Gaza Campaign on hold as an option in retaliation to on-going Palestinian Resistance bombing and opted instead to what local radio stations quoting security sources call pinpointed strikes against militants. In this context, Israeli tanks and armoured personnel carriers entered the West Bank cities of Hebron and Jenin, hours after a Palestinian blew himself up killing two Israelis south of Tel Aviv yesterday. (Read photo caption)

The Israeli cabinet is meeting to decide its response to the latest suicide attack - the third this week.

The occupation army is reported to have killed two Palestinians - one an Islamic Jihad militant in Jenin and another a 58-year-old father of nine at a checkpoint outside Jerusalem.

Israeli occupation sources have not commented on Thursday's pre-dawn incursion into Hebron and Jenin, although the sources quoted by AFP said 17 Palestinians had been arrested - three of them wanted for what is called "aggression against the Israeli state".

Meanwhile, Palestinian security and medical sources said four Palestinians were wounded, including an 18-year-old girl shot in the head, in an incursion into Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Unconfirmed Reports Of Palestinian Voting Body Resigning

All members of the Palestinian Central Elections Committee have resigned because Yasser Arafat has not yet set a date for new elections, despite repeated promises, an official close to the panel said Thursday. The head of the five-member committee, Mahmoud Abbas, met late Wednesday with the Palestinian leader to discuss prospects for elections.

A Palestinian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that after the meeting all members of the panel submitted their resignations to Arafat, who has been unwilling to commit to a date for elections. The report of the resignations could not immediately be confirmed with a second source.

Arafat is under growing pressure from abroad and at home to carry out wide-ranging reforms of his corruption-ridden Palestinian Authority. At the top of the list is a demand for new presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections.

There have been conflicting reports about Arafat's willingness to go to elections. Last week, a senior Arafat aide said the Palestinian leader has endorsed new elections within six months. However, Arafat later said such a vote could not take place under Israeli occupation. His aides then clarified that Arafat insisted on an Israeli troop withdrawal to positions held before the outbreak of the current round of fighting in September 2000.

PHOTO CAPTION

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, left rear, meets with the quartet committee from left, U.S. consular general Ronald Schlicher, EU envoy Meguel Moratinos and UN envoy Terje Roed- Larsen in his West Bank office in Ramallah Wednesday, May 22, 2002. Arafat discussed with the quartet committee reconstructing what was destroyed during the recent Israeli incursion and the preparations for the elections. (AP Photo Nasser Nasser)