Around 20 other people were wounded in the raid Tuesday on the main north-south road in the narrow coastal territory, which came shortly before another explosion went off in the Beit Lahiya region of northern Gaza.

Palestinians said the second blast, which wounded one, was the result of an Israeli raid although the army denied involvement.

A military spokesman however confirmed the involvement of its aircraft in the first explosion, saying it had hit a car carrying militants who were preparing to fire Katyuashas, rockets which have a much longer range than the usual makeshift missiles fired by the Palestinian factions.

A local leader of Jihad, Khaled al-Batsh, told AFP that three of the movement's followers had been in the vehicle which was targeted in the raid.

Two of the three were killed when two missiles slammed into the vehicle and the other injuries were caused by a third missile which was fired a short time afterwards while a group of civilians had gathered at the scene.

Israel has intensified its air strikes in recent days against all factions, including the governing Hamas which recently resumed rocket attacks following the death of eight Palestinian civilians on a beachfront in the Gaza Strip.

Still fuming over the deaths in Gaza, which the Palestinians say was caused bvy Israeli shelling despite denials from the military, Abbas denounced the latest civilian deaths.

"What Israel is doing is called state terrorism," Abbas told reporters at his office in Gaza. "This state terrorism will not shake us."

Israel appeared unrepentant however, with Defence Minister Amir Peretz renewing veiled threats against the Hamas leadership unless there was a halt to the Hamas rocket attacks.

"Nobody has an insurance policy. There will be no immunity for anyone who is connected with the planning or carrying out attacks against Israeli citizens," he said on a tour of the northern border with Lebanon.

The army issued a statement saying that 38 rockets had been fired from northern Gaza into Israel in the past 24 hours and more than 100 since Friday.

Abbas has consistently called on the factions to hold off from firing the crudely built rockets which have caused a number of Palestinian deaths.

Hamas had largely held off on rocket attacks for 18 months under a deal with Abbas but the resumption of firing over the weekend was reflective of the breakdown in relations between the Islamists and the president who continues to have control the security services stuffed with members of his Fatah faction.

The tensions between the two sides erupted on Monday in unprecedented factional violence which saw the parliament and cabinet offices torched, an MP kidnapped as well as deadly clashes in southern Gaza.

Gunmen from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, supported at times by members of the security services, even initially prevented the fire brigade from reaching the cabinet offices although the blaze was eventually brought under control.

To cap the sense of chaos, one of the few independent members of the Palestinian cabinet, tourism minister Judeh Mourqos, resigned in protest at the worsening security situation.

The Fatah loyalists' anger had been sparked by earlier violence in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah where Hamas militiamen tried to storm a compound housing the local headquarters of the preventive security service.

Two people were killed and more than a dozen wounded in Monday's factional violence in Rafah, which at one stage saw Hamas fire rocket-propelled grenades into the preventive security HQ.

Excerpts from the diary passed on to Haaretz reveal that Begin knew of the plans to assassinate Adenauer, and even initiated meetings to promote the operation. Among other things, Sudit writes that he heard Begin had offered to sell his gold watch to pay for the hit after the operation ran into financial difficulties.

Begin's personal secretary, Yehiel Kadishai, and Herzl Makov, the director of the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, told Haaretz on Monday night that they knew nothing of Begin's involvement in the affair.

On March 27, 1952, a German sapper was killed by an explosive device that had been hidden in an item of mail addressed to Adenauer. At the same time, two letter bombs were sent to the meeting place of the Israeli and German delegations by a group calling themselves the Jewish Partisans Organization.

A few weeks later, five Israelis were arrested in France on suspicion of involvement in the assassination attempt. One of the men arrested was Sudit, a former member of the Irgun, a prestate underground led by Begin. Sudit allegedly prepared the explosive device and hid it in the package sent to Adenauer.

Sudit decided to publicize the affair some 40 years later, in his journal, Be'shlihut Ha'matzpun (On a Mission of Conscience). According to Sudit, he met secretly with Begin and suggested "an operation that would shake the world and prove that not all Israelis are prepared to accept money as atonement for blood."

Sudit writes that Begin was very unhappy with the reparations agreement in the works, noting that the former prime minister "was ready for any reaction that would come as long as the reparations agreement was avoided."

Sudit says that Begin subsequently introduced him to then-Herut MKs Yohanan Bader and Haim Landau, and also Abba Shertzer, who headed the Irgun's intelligence service. It was Shertzer who told Sudit of Begin's readiness to sell his gold watch to finance the trip to France.

According to the journal, Begin and Sudit met once more before the latter left to carry out his mission.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine announced Monday that it would be publishing extracts from the journal in the near future. The newspaper's Israel correspondent, Joerg Bremer, told Haaretz that he had tried to interview Sudit a number of times, but had been turned down with the excuse that the man was not willing to speak to Germans.

The source said it was possible these agents were involved in a long series of explosions and assassinations in Lebanon.

According to the report, Lebanese intelligence identified the car used in the al-Majdoub assassination as owned by Mahmoud Qassem Rafa, 59, a retired policeman. Security forces began following the man after his financial situation radically improved several months ago.

Surveillance has been tightened in the past week and intelligence services wire-tapped into his phone. Rafa was arrested several days ago in the early hours of the morning coming home.

In his interrogation Rafa confessed to his involvement in the al-Majdoub assassination, as well as in the killing of senior Hezbollah member Ali Salah and in several other incidents.

Lebanese intelligence services said that the investigation now focuses on the source of the explosives in the al-Majdoub assassination and on Rafa's network associates, some of whom already managed to flee the country.

The two groups have been involved in a bitter power struggle made worse by Abbas' decision to call for a referendum on Palestinian statehood.

Hamas fears a 'yes' vote would amount to de facto recognition of Israel, something the militant group vehemently opposes.

The power struggle between the Palestinian militias is reaching the crisis point.

The attack on the parliament in Ramallah has taken the violence, already endemic in Gaza, directly to the West Bank.

The Ramallah attack began when hundreds of officers from the security forces loyal to Fatah stormed the parliament building. They let loose with automatic weapons, shooting out the windows. Once inside, they smashed furniture and destroyed rooms.

Attackers set cabinet offices ablaze

The gunmen set fire to the cabinet offices, the symbol of Prime Minister Ismail Haniye, leader of the new ruling party Hamas.

The fire spread quickly and some gunmen prevented fire engines from approaching the building to douse the blaze.

The rampage followed an attack by Hamas gunmen on a building of the preventive security forces in Gaza.

The day-long clashes that followed left two people dead and 14 wounded, with each side blaming the other for having started the fighting.

Abbas, the Fatah leader, has been locked in a power struggle with Hamas since its landslide victory in Palestinian elections earlier this year. That power struggle has revolved around control of the security forces.

Haniye established a new Gaza security force loyal to Hamas last month, sparking the present crisis.

Tensions have escalated since Abbas called a referendum Saturday on negotiating a political settlement with Israel.

The military committee looking into the blast is expected to issue its findings later Tuesday.

The committee will announce that Israel was almost certainly not involved in the explosion and it was caused by explosives planted by the Hamas militant group, military officials said on condition of anonymity since the results were not official yet.

The blast occurred on the outskirts of the town of Beit Lahia, not far from where Palestinian militants frequently fire rockets toward Israel. Israel often shoots artillery in the area to prevent the rocket launchings.

According to the findings, shrapnel taken from two wounded Palestinians who were evacuated to Israeli hospitals showed that the explosives were not made in Israel, the officials said. In addition, the last Israeli shell fired toward Palestinian rocket launchers who operate in the area was seven minutes before the blast and landed 250 metres away from the scene, the officials said.

Also, after the blast, Israeli military viewed Hamas militants collecting the shrapnel from the area, in an apparent effort to prevent authorities from revealing that the explosion was caused by explosives it had laid, the officials said.

The results of the investigation are also based on threats by Hamas to stop Israeli naval commandos from landing on the beach after group militants were killed in the area in an ambush by Israeli navy divers last month, the officials said.

The army has accounted for five of six of the shells that it fired in the area Friday evening before the blast, the officials said. The one shell that is not accounted for was fired before the five others - more than ten minutes before the blast that killed the Palestinians - and apparently landed further away than the shells that were fired later, the officials said.

At a joint press conference after talks, Blair said the United kingdom, like other countries, wanted Israel to negotiate with the Palestinians on border changes.

The international community was agreed on how to solve the problem, he said.

A two-state solution recognizing a viable Palestinian state and Israel, a renunciation of violence and an adherence to the road-map for peace were all principles agreed by the outside world, he added.

Olmert said "the first policy of Israel is negotiations," and it was the chance for Palestinians to "realize their dreams" of an independent state.

But he warned Palestinian leaders that he is prepared to act unilaterally if they do not join him at the negotiating table. Israel would give the Palestinians until the end of the year to negotiate a peace deal, he said.

The two leaders also discussed Iran's nuclear program. Olmert said "Israel will not tolerate nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran. We will not be able to accept such a reality."

Neither is the problem confined to Britain. Other European nations, such as France, Spain, Sweden and Denmark, have similar laws, all guided by the principle known as universal justice. These statutes allow lawsuits against alleged perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity to be prosecuted even if neither the complainant nor the defendant are citizens of the country in which they are filed, and even if the alleged crime took place somewhere else.

With cases similar to Almog's already brought against Israeli officials in Belgium, Israeli diplomats and legal experts fear that the procedures in England might herald an onslaught of lawsuits against Israeli officers in courts the world over. Ironically, the laws in question were first put into place in the wake of the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals to ensure such crimes could not be perpetrated without prosecution.

Chandra Sriram, professor of human rights at the University of East London and one of the leading experts in the field, cautioned that universal justice cases face tough tests.

"The threshold is relatively high," she said. As a practical matter, courts "are not willing to assert jurisdiction unless they think there is a reasonable case and a reasonable chance of managing it."

Usually, there must be strong evidence that the individual or individuals in question were personally responsible for specific gross violations of international law, such as genocide or torture, explained Sriram. And the evidence must support clear intent to commit the violations, she said, not just that they occurred as byproducts of other actions.

Still, on a strictly legal level in Great Britain, a judge technically need only find that the facts alleged, if proven, would constitute a violation of international law under the principle of universal justice, said Sriram.

It is hard to know Workman's exact legal reasoning for issuing Almog's arrest warrant. Alongside the warrant, Workman issued a still-sealed document explaining his decision.

Kate Maynard, the solicitor who brought the charges against Almog, said the magistrate stated there was sufficient evidence to open up a case against Almog, as his responsibility for the house demolitions was in breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, a violation criminalized in the UK.

Sriram noted that another common yardstick in such cases was whether the country whose citizens were being charged had a functioning judicial system capable of pursuing its own challenges. "You can," she added, "characterize the Israeli legal system as such."

Yet, Israel's judicial system has been reluctant to address most accusations concerning the behavior of army officers in the West Bank and Gaza. According to a 2005 Human Rights Watch report, more than 1,600 Palestinians - including at least 500 children - were killed by Israeli security forces between Sept. 29, 2000 and Nov. 30, 2004. Thousands more were seriously injured.

The Israel Defense Forces informed Human Rights Watch that as of May 10, 2004, it had launched criminal investigations of just 74 alleged cases of unlawful use of lethal force - less than 5 percent of the civilian deaths in nearly four years of the second intifada.

Maynard, the British solicitor who filed the suit against Almog, stressed it was the evidence, not the Israeli judicial system's failure to deal with that case, that most influenced the magistrate's decision to issue an arrest warrant. Documenting such a failure was not, in any event, a formal requirement of the British statute in question, she said.

But Maynard added, "In all cases we've put together, we've always sought to show a chain of impunity in Israel. In all of the cases we've been able to show that local lawyers have petitioned the courts to try and obtain justice in Israel, and couldn't."

For all the efforts by some to use the principle of universal justice against Israeli actions in the occupied territories, Sriram stressed that the concept remained problematic in legal terms.

"It's murky," she said. "If anyone can assert it anywhere in the world, how could you resolve competing claims? And how do you establish who has a legitimate claim?"

As a result of such issues, she said, courts the world over think carefully before translating principle into action. Courts, she stressed, "are only going to entertain a case where a case has been made of a clear international crime. They exercise a pretty significant degree of caution."

Israel Fights Back

Tzipi Livni, Israel's minister of foreign affairs, has denounced the cases filed against Israel as politically motivated.

"England is turning into an address for lawsuits that do not deal with its own citizens," she said in a recent statement. "This may undermine its war on terrorism."

Working behind the scenes, Israeli diplomats are trying to convince other European countries to amend their legislation. Its negotiators conduct their talks, for the most part, without publicity.

Belgium is a case in point: In 1993, the country passed an unprecedented law that allowed citizens to press criminal charges against anyone suspected of crimes against humanity, with few restrictions. Unlike Britain, for example, Belgium allowed for arrest warrants to be issued against accused individuals even if they were outside the country and had never entered into its jurisdiction.

Using this law, 23 survivors of the 1982 massacre in the Lebanese Sabra and Shatila refugee camps filed a complaint in 2001 accusing Israel's then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other Israeli officials, of war crimes and crimes against humanity. A tense debate ensued, with Israeli and American diplomats arguing the law's flaws. In 2003, the law was changed, stating that Belgian courts will only have jurisdiction over international crimes if the accused or the victim is Belgian or a Belgian resident, or if Belgium is required by treaty to exercise jurisdiction over the case.

More recently, Livni met last month with British Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells to discuss the problems British law posed for IDF officers. Howells acknowledged that the problem burdened both countries, and pledged to try and resolve the situation rapidly.

But not all countries are revising their laws. Spain's Supreme Court, for example, last year overturned a 2003 decision that blocked the country from prosecuting the perpetrators of human rights violations in Guatemala, affirming the need to bring international criminals to justice, regardless of their citizenship or where they committed their crimes.

Israeli legal experts agree that the lawsuits are harmful in the long term. But, in an apparent indication of the issue's sensitivity, no official could be found in the Foreign Ministry or the army who was willing to comment on the record.

"While no immediate threat is evident," said an Israeli official who would speak only on condition of anonymity, "the damage, in the long run, accumulates. Such lawsuits deeply embarrass us, and they create a false impression that Israel is a singularly unlawful state."

The irony of this wave of legal challenges, said Israeli officials, is that they rely on aspects of international law originally devised, in part, as a response to the Holocaust. During the Nuremberg trials, a concept of International Jurisdiction began to take shape, according to which states may claim criminal jurisdiction over persons suspected of crimes against humanity regardless of the perpetrator's nationality or the location of the crime itself. One of the most famous international cases invoking this principle was Israel's prosecution, in 1961, of Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann.

The United States does not allow citizens to file such criminal complaints. But U.S. law does allow for civil suits. A class-action suit was brought last December in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by a group of Lebanese nationals charging Moshe Ya'alon, the Israeli army's former chief of staff, and Avi Dichter, the former head of the Shin Bet, with war crimes for their roles in the 1996 bombing of the Lebanese village Kafar Qana, an incident that caused the death of more than 100 civilians. Ya'alon is currently serving as a research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The plaintiffs sued under the Alien Torts Claims Act of 1789, which grants jurisdiction to U.S. federal courts over "any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States."

The act has been invoked many times, albeit with scant success, in cases involving everything from a Holocaust survivor suing the National French Railroad Company for the deportation of Jews to Nazi death camps to a suit filed against Texaco for disposing of waste in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

The complaint against Ya'alon, filed on November 4, 2005, accuses the former head of army intelligence of having "command responsibility" in the 1996 attack.

The case, said Judith Chomsky of the Center for Constitutional Rights, an organization that helped bring the lawsuit against Ya'alon, stands a good chance.

"A recent Supreme Court decision has recognized that the statute provides that an alien can bring a claim if the claim is based on violations of the law of nations, or customary law, which is universal, obligatory and specific," she said. "For example, you can't torture people, and no nation has the right to say, 'I'm staying out of this rule; I'm going to torture people anyway.'" The complaint, she said, with its meticulous description of the attack's damage to lives and property, falls within that realm.

Israeli officials declined to comment on the Ya'alon case.