Suicide bomber kills 15 in Israel

A suicide bomber killed at least 15 people in an Israeli club yesterday, police said, as US President George W. Bush met Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for talks on Middle East peace.

The blast in the Israeli town of Rishon Letzion caused a ceiling in the building to collapse, trapping people in a hall on an adjoining floor, an ambulance official said.

"We know of an explosion in a building ... a nightclub in which there was apparently a large number of people," Chaim Cohen, a police commander told Army radio.

A police spokeswoman put the death toll at 15. Ambulance workers said at least 40 people had been hurt.

The blast occurred while the two leaders met at the White House to try to make progress in the Middle East crisis, with Sharon once again trying to sideline Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

Sharon, whom Bush has called a "man of peace" despite his leadership of this spring`s crushing offensive in Palestinian areas of the West Bank, has failed in five previous White House visits to persuade the president to ostracise him.

The Israeli leader brought fresh demands for a major restructuring of the Palestinian Authority that would limit Arafat`s influence, as well as documents purporting to outline the Palestinian leader`s connections to financing terror.

Although Bush views Arafat with open mistrust, he remains committed to dealing with him as the recognized leader of the Palestinian people.

Bush said after meeting Sharon yesterday he was sending CIA Director George Tenet to the Middle East to work on building a new Palestinian security force.

Bush and Sharon both urged reforms within the Palestinian Authority, with the US president urging the authority to adopt a constitution and Sharon saying reforms must precede any discussion of a Palestinian state.

In the Middle East, efforts to end a 36-day-old armed standoff at Bethlehem`s Church of the Nativity stalled yesterday when Italy refused to accept 13 Palestinian militants holed up inside one of Christianity`s holiest shrines.

Israel and the Palestinians had agreed to a US and European Union brokered deal in which 13 gunmen on Israel`s wanted list would go to Egypt and then into exile in Italy.

But Italy said it had been kept in the dark and could not consider accepting the men for now.

In a bid to end the last-minute snag in the church siege deal, US Secretary of State Colin Powell telephoned Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to urge cooperation to bring the standoff to an end and pave the way for an Israeli withdrawal from Bethlehem.

"As you know, we are hopeful that Italy might accept some of the people from the church and that`s what the Secretary has been discussing with the Italian prime minister," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told a news briefing.

Under the agreement, a further 26 alleged militants sheltering inside the church were to be transferred to the Gaza Strip. Both groups would be under US escort, diplomats said.

But as night fell, hopes of a quick resolution faded. "We have reached an understanding to resolve the Church of the Nativity crisis," Israeli army spokesman Olivier Rafowicz told reporters in Bethlehem. "The implementation is being delayed because no country is willing to accept the terrorists."

Palestinian officials held out hope that a solution could be found to end the standoff, a source of alarm for the Christian world, which reveres the site of the Church of the Nativity as the birthplace of Jesus.

"We hope the Israeli troops will leave and never return," said Bethlehem Mayor Hanna Nasser.

The deal, which took shape while Sharon was in Washington waging a diplomatic assault against Arafat, would end the last major standoff of Israel`s West Bank offensive, begun on March 29 after a wave of Palestinian suicide attacks.

Bush has demanded a full withdrawal from Palestinian-ruled areas - an Arab condition for attending a peace conference that world powers want held to seek an end to a 19-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.

But in Rome, the Foreign Ministry released a terse statement saying Italy had not received any official request to grant exile status to Palestinians "accused of acts of terrorism."

"The possibility of receiving Palestinian citizens in Italy has never been raised (officially) and therefore at the current state of affairs it cannot be considered," the statement said.

It confirmed what a senior government official had told Reuters earlier - Italy was bitter that it had been kept in the dark by the United States and Britain and felt it had been steamrollered into playing a part.

"We were treated in an arrogant and intolerable way," the official said.

There was no word of any other country willing to step in and accept the militants.

The deal hit another stumbling block over weapons belonging to Palestinian security men who sought refuge in the church along with more than 100 clerics and other civilians to escape invading Israeli forces.

The security men wanted written assurances, before handing their weapons in to the Israelis, that they would be returned.

Bethlehem Governor Mohammed al-Madani said from inside the church that the alleged militants being sent to Gaza would not be tried. But diplomats said a decision had not been taken on their fate.

Militant groups behind attacks that have killed scores of Israelis have made clear their opposition to the deportation of their members in the church.

In preparation for lifting their siege, soldiers set up metal detectors outside the shrine to check whether those departing were carrying weapons.

At least 1,345 Palestinians and 459 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000.