Two key Palestinian resistance groups have decided to attend talks in Cairo on halting attacks against Israelis after initially saying they would stay away, a senior Palestinian official said on Tuesday. "Hamas and Islamic Jihad have informed the Egyptians Tuesday they have changed their position and will send their representatives to Cairo for the talks," the official said, speaking to Reuters from Cairo.

Other Palestinian officials said the talks planned for Wednesday would be held on Thursday instead.

PFLP-GC Not Invited

Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Islamic groups dedicated to the liberation of Palestine, have carried out dozens of resistance bombings since the uprising began in September 2000.

They have said strikes against Israelis would continue as long as Israel's forces occupy land it took in the 1967 Middle East war, which Palestinians want for a state.

"Our resistance is continuing and it will not stop. Our resistance is linked to the violence of the occupation and it will not end before it is removed," said Abdullah al-Shami, an Islamic Jihad leader in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian sources in Beirut had earlier said the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), led by Damascus-based guerrilla Ahmed Jibril, had been excluded, prompting the two groups to skip the talks.

But a Palestinian official from another faction said Egypt had invited all 10 major factions and said Syrian rejection of the talks lay behind their decision.

A decision to accept a draft proposed by Egypt to halt all Palestinian armed resistance in a 27-month-old uprising for statehood could lift the flagging fortunes of Israel's left-wing in the final days before a January 28 election.

Aborted Car Bomb Attack

Security concerns have dominated the campaign, and opinion polls show that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's right-wing Likud, which opposes peace talks before attacks on Israelis end, will crush its main rival, the center-left Labor Party.

Occupation sources in northern Israel said on Tuesday they detonated in a controlled blast a Palestinian car packed with 660 to 880 pounds of explosives near the Israeli Arab town of Umm el Fahm.

Occupation forces had chased the car, which crossed into Israel from the West Bank, but its four occupants ran away.

Israel Demolishes Palestinian Shops

Fresh confrontations flared in the West Bank, where Israeli occupation troops in the village of Nazlet Issa fired tear gas to disperse a protest against the demolition of up to 50 small Palestinian shops, human rights activists and Palestinians said.

Israel said occupation troops had torn down 21 shops because they were built without permits. The shops, part of a market, are the main source of living for the villagers, who are dependent on customers who come from Israel because prices are cheap.

Hezbollah Attacks Israel

In the north, a disputed area on Israel's border with Lebanon heated up for the first time in five months.

An Israeli occupation army spokesman said the Lebanese Hizbollah group fired anti-tank missiles and mortar bombs at an occupation army outpost, causing no casualties or damage. Israeli occupation forces responded with tank and artillery fire, he said.

Witnesses said one person was killed and another injured in the retaliatory Israeli fire.

PHOTO CAPTION

Moussa Abu Marzouk, a member of the Damascus-based Islamic militant Hamas group, tells The Associated Press in Damascus, Syria on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2003 his group wouldn't take part in a Cairo meeting. Egypt invited Palestinian factions to Cairo on Wednesday to continue talks on a proposal for a one-year halt on attacks against Israeli civilians. (AP Photo /Bassem Tellawi).
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