Israeli-Palestinian security co-operation has led to the discovery of the biggest-ever bomb-making factory in the West Bank, in which more than 500 kilos of explosives have been uncovered, and from which Hamas Islamic activists were allegedly planning to set out on bombing missions inside Israel and at West Bank settlements.
Details of the discovery emerged yesterday, ironically as the Israeli cabinet met to consider a new list of demands to be presented to the Palestinian Authority as a precondition for any further territorial compromise.
The Hamas bomb workshop, located in a ground-floor store room in the West Bank city of Nablus, was raided by Palestinian security officials on Monday, following a tip-off from the Israeli Shin Bet intelligence service. At least four Hamas activists, believed to have worked there, were arrested.
Israeli and Palestinian officials said last night that initial investigations suggested that Hamas was preparing explosives for use in car bombs, and that bus stations at major Israeli cities, other Israeli population centres, and West Bank settlements were among the intended targets. The explosive material found at the workshop was sufficient "to blow up all of Israel", said one Palestinian official.
Early last year, a big Hamas bomb workshop was discovered - amid much mutual Israeli-Palestinian backslapping - in the Bethlehem area. It turned out, however, that the Hamas gang that established it had already removed several devices, which were subsequently used in suicide bombings in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Last night, Israeli officials expressed fears that bombs had already been distributed from the Nablus workshop; Israel's security forces, which have been warning for days about the possibility of Hamas bombings, remain on high alert.
This latest evidence of the value of Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation comes at a time when the Israeli government is refusing to sign a new US-brokered accord on security.
The Netanyahu government, furthermore, yesterday issued a 12-page list of demands ahead of any further West Bank land handovers.
Mr Netanyahu and the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, are to hold separate talks at the White House next week, and President Clinton is said to want to hear details of the next, overdue, Israeli withdrawal from West Bank. David Horovitz is managing editor of the Jerusalem Post