HIGHLIGHTS: Mega Bomb Attack Feared on Israeli Holiday||Occupation Forces Arrest Leading Hamas Resistance Activist Hisham Sharabaty in Hebron, Al-Khalil||Occupation Army Shot at By Resistance Man||Jewish French Lawyer Joins Barghouti's Defence|| STORY: Israeli armored combat vehicles fired at a crowd of stone-throwing Palestinian boys in the West Bank on Saturday and wounded four of them, one seriously, Palestinian witnesses and medics said.

Two Palestinian boys aged 13 and 14 were wounded in the West Bank city of Tulkarm when tanks fired in the direction of people violating a curfew, hospital officials said.

Across the porous Green Line boundary in Israel, police were on high alert for reported threats of a "mega-attack" by Palestinian Resistance groups over the Jewish New Year holiday weekend.

But the only reported bloodshed was in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The ongoing violence made a three-week-old mutual security arrangement between Israel and the Palestinian leadership aimed at dampening Resistance attacks look threadbare.

Also on Saturday, in the West Bank city of Hebron, Israeli occupation soldiers arrested leading Hamas Resistance activist Hisham Sharabaty. Few details of the arrest were available, but Palestinians said Sharabaty, long wanted by Israel, had been living at large for years and was arrested at his home during a rare visit.

Israeli tanks and occupation troops swept back into West Bank cities in June after a rash of Resistance bomb attacks in an uprising led by Palestinian Resistance groups that erupted two years ago after negotiations on a Palestinian state hit an impasse.

OCCUPATION ARMY SAYS SHOT AT BY RESISTANCE MAN

Israeli occupation army sources said their troops fired at Palestinian Resistance man after being shot at. They said Palestinians told the district liaison office that four youths aged 15 to 18 were injured but the Israeli side had no report of its own on this.

FRENCH JEWISH LAWYER JOINS BARGHOUTI'S DEFENCE

A Tunisian-born Jewish lawyer who defended Algerians fighting French colonial rule said on Saturday she would help represent Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouthi on trial for murder in Israel.

Barghouthi, charismatic West Bank head of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, shouted in a rowdy court appearance on Thursday he did not recognize Israel's right to try him and that its occupation of Palestinian lands should be on trial instead.

Gisele Halimi, a 75-year-old French Jewish lawyer, said she met Barghouthi in prison for an hour on Friday and he agreed that she could defend him at his next court date on October 3.

She said she had studied his case and had not found evidence to back up the charges against him. Barghouthi has denied involvement in plotting Resistance bombings that have marked the uprising for independence, describing himself as solely a political leader and a freedom fighter.

PHOTO CAPTION

Palestinian boys run from an Israeli tank during clashes at the al-Amari refugee camp, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, September 7, 2002. Up to 40 Israeli armored personnel carriers and tanks rolled into a Palestinian-ruled town of Deir al Balah in central Gaza on Saturday, and more troops reinforced the outskirts, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said. (Ammar Awad/Reuters)