HIGHLIGHTS: Ten Palestinians in all Detained Sunday||Israelis Pour Cold Water on Prospects for a Promised Withdrawal From Hebron, Al-Khalil||Israeli Reservists Report More Looting by Occupation Army|| STORY: Israeli occupation troops raided the Palestinian town of Salfit in the West Bank on Sunday, arresting suspected Resistance activists after talks to ease Israel's military grip on the occupied West Bank and Gaza got bogged down in discord.

An occupation army spokesman said at least five Palestinians had been arrested in the operation north of Ramallah which began before dawn. An additional five arrests were made elsewhere in the West Bank overnight.

The Salfit raid followed a gun battle in the West Bank city of Jenin in which a Palestinian Resistance activist was killed on Saturday and underlined the fragility of a week-old deal to pull Israeli troops out of Palestinian areas in return for calm.

Under the arrangement, Israel pulled forces out of Bethlehem last week, one of seven West Bank cities reoccupied after Resistance bombings in Israel in June.

The withdrawal was viewed as a test for a wider cease-fire to end the bloodshed in the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.

But a pledge to ease restrictions on Palestinian travel in the Gaza Strip has yet to be carried out and Israeli officials poured cold water on the prospect that a new withdrawal from Hebron was in store in the near future.

"First of all, we must deepen the effort (to halt violence) in Gaza and Bethlehem. It is pointless to move forward...unless there is quiet and the warnings (of new attacks) have stopped," Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said.

"In Hebron there are still many warnings...We want to go about this process step by step...and not to jump beyond their capabilities," he said, referring to Palestinian security forces charged with maintaining order where Israel has pulled out.

PALESTINIANS SAY ISRAEL FREEZES TRUCE TEST

Nabil Abu Rdainah, a top adviser to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, said on Saturday Israel had essentially frozen the "Gaza-Bethlehem First" agreement.

"The Israeli side has no intention to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza. Therefore there won't be any progress."

The Defense Ministry denied the charge in a statement, saying talks on further measures to ease crippling curfews and closures on Palestinian areas would resume this week.

"The plan cannot be judged on the basis of daily progress but over a period of time," it said.

The arrangement had also been challenged from the start by Palestinian Resistance groups who rejected renewed dialogue with Israel and vowed to keep up attacks.

On Saturday, a Resistance in the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, was killed in a clash with Israeli troops in Jenin.

Israeli military sources confirmed the death and said a second Palestinian Resistance man was wounded.

ISRAELI RESERVISTS REPORT MORE LOOTING BY OCCUPATION ARMY

Israeli public radio quoted fresh reports by reservists of Israeli occupation troops looting Palestinian homes during a major army incursion into the West Bank last spring.

According to the reports, occupation soldiers stole cash, including forged money, and jewelry in the towns of Jenin and Ramallah during Operation Defensive Wall.

PHOTO CAPTION

A Palestinian boy (R) watches an Israeli bulldozer destroy a Palestinian house next to the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom in the central part of Gaza Strip on August 24, 2002. An Israeli-Palestinian arrangement to ease Israel's military clampdown on Palestinian areas stalled with violence in the Gaza Strip and the failure of joint security talks on a new Israeli pullout. (Suhaib Salem/Reuter