A bomb planted under an Israeli passenger train wounded its driver Sunday in an attack that clouded prospects for easing Israeli restrictions on Palestinians under curfew in seven reoccupied West Bank cities. The blast, which police called a terror attack, occurred only hours after Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told Palestinian leaders that Palestinian violence was delaying steps to relieve civilian suffering in the West Bank. (Read photo caption)

"I think it's obvious that despite our efforts to conduct talks that will lead to an easing of restrictions...as far as the Palestinians are concerned, anything goes," said Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Saturday's high-level Israeli-Palestinian meeting was tinged by Palestinian anger at Israel's tentative plan to deport from the West Bank to the fenced-in Gaza Strip relatives of Resistance men who provide a "supportive environment" for Resistance bombings.

"It was made clear to them -- and they are starting to understand -- that terrorism is hurting them as well as us," Peres told Israel Radio after meeting Interior Minister Abdel-Razzak al-Yahya and peace negotiator Saeb Erekat.

Erekat described the talks as serious and said they dealt with political, financial and security issues. He told Reuters the Palestinian side had raised its objections to Israel's deportation plans, a measure he said would be a war crime.

Israeli officials said future Resistance bombers could be deterred by the prospect their relatives would be exiled, an argument that has drawn criticism from Israel's closest ally, the United States and the United Nations.

Sixteen of 22 Palestinians detained by Israel Friday for possible exile to Gaza petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court on Sunday to instruct Israeli occupation authorities not to deport them. No expulsion orders have yet been issued.

Israeli occupation army sources said earlier that Attorney General Eliyakim Rubinstein and the army had agreed that exile -- from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip only -- would be an option only for family members with a proven link to plotting for attacks.

BLAST ROCKS TRAIN

Near the central Israeli town of Rehovot, a bomb placed on railway tracks exploded as a double-decker passenger train passed by during the morning rush hour, wounding its driver and damaging the locomotive, police and rescue workers said.
The train was not derailed by what police said was an 11-pound remote-control bomb planted by Palestinians. Three weeks ago, four train passengers were wounded by a bomb blast on a railway line in the central Israeli town of Lod.

Israeli media reports said the train Sunday from the northern town of Binyamina to the port city of Ashdod in the south was packed with soldiers returning to base at the start of the Israeli work week.

The incident followed the killing by Palestinian militants of 12 people in Israel and near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank this week despite the presence in seven Palestinian cities of Israeli forces on an open-ended mission to stop such attacks.
Yaffa Ben-Ari, a spokeswoman for Peres, said a "positive spirit" prevailed at Saturday's talks.

"Peres presented steps Israel is ready to take to alleviate the situation in (West Bank cities) but said continued terror is hindering action to do so," she said.

Peres told Israel Radio the Israeli army intended to leave Palestinian cities "when the Palestinian prove they can...stop the terrorism." Palestinian officials have said reoccupation and curfew make it impossible for their security forces to function.
Palestinians have been locked up in their homes, unable to work and short of basic supplies since Israeli troops stormed into West Bank cities after suicide attacks on June 18-19 that killed 26 people in Jerusalem.

PHOTO CAPTION

Israeli police search for evidence after a train was hit by a bomb near the city of Yavneh July 21, 2002. The bomb the train's driver in an attack that clouded prospects for easing Israeli restrictions on Palestinians under curfew in seven reoccupied West Bank cities. (Tsafrir Abayov/Reuter