Israel and Palestinians postpone meeting

JERUSALEM -- Israeli officials postponed high-level talks with the Palestinians on Saturday, saying they needed more time to consult before discussing ways to improve the humanitarian situation in Palestinian areas.

Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said the meeting Saturday night was to have covered political, economic and security issues.

But an Israeli official said the meeting was only to have discussed improving humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians and ensuring that aid not be funneled toward attacks on Israelis.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the meeting would be rescheduled after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon meets with Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and other key ministers, expected early this week.

Israel's Channel One television said the talks were scrapped because Sharon and the more moderate Peres disagreed on the terms.

The talks were launched in advance of a meeting planned for Tuesday in New York of a committee made up of the United States, Russia, United Nations and European Union which is trying to put an end to 21 months of fighting.

The group is to be joined Wednesday by the Jordanian and Egyptian foreign ministers.

At Egypt's invitation, Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer planned to meet Monday with President Hosni Mubarak in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria, said Ben-Eliezer spokesman Yarden Vatikai.

The diplomatic activity came as Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat urged the United States to continue supporting his Palestinian Authority.

Arafat sent the Bush administration a letter outlining recent reforms and a 100-day program to implement them, said the PLO representative in Washington, Hassan Abdel Rahman.

In a telephone interview from Washington, Abdel Rahman said the new U.S. policy demanding a change of Palestinian leadership could produce more "tensions and aggression in the Palestinian territories."

In the West Bank on Saturday, Israeli forces detonated a car near the West Bank town of Qalqilya after finding four explosive devices inside, the army said. The passengers of the car, which had an Israeli license plate, had fled after Israeli soldiers fired warning shots.

In addition to the devices, three gas canisters containing flammable materials, and three canisters containing nails and sharp metal objects were found in the car, an army statement said.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, five Palestinians wanted by Israeli security forces were arrested north of Nablus, the army said. A sixth Palestinian suspected of plotting attacks was arrested in the same area.

And in east Jerusalem, Israeli police scuffled with a few dozen Palestinian and foreign demonstrators protesting the closure of the offices of Al Quds University's president and leading Palestinian moderate Sari Nusseibeh, the top PLO official in the city. One demonstrator was arrested.

Israeli police shut Nusseibeh's offices last week, saying the university was operating in violation of interim peace accords which ban Palestinian political activity in Jerusalem. The Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.