UPDATED||HIGHLIGHTS: Israeli Buses on Sunday Morning Usually Packed with Soldiers|| Israeli Occupation Troops Force Palestinian Civilians to Lead them in Potentially Dangerous Searches||Sharon Now Willing to Meet Yehya & Peres to Meet Mubarak in Cairo Monday||Former Arafat Adviser Launches New Political Party|| STORY: A bomb exploded on a bus in northern Israel on Sunday, killing several people and wounding at least 15 in what Israeli police called a Palestinian attack.

"Fifteen people were evacuated to hospital. There are also several dead," Avi Zohar, a spokesman for the Magen David Adom ambulance service, told Channel Two television.

Later the number of dead was put at nine.

Channel Two said at least nine people were killed. It was not immediately known if a Palestinian bomber carried out the attack or if the blast was caused by explosives planted on the vehicle.

The blast, at the start of the Israeli work week, ripped through a bus traveling from the northern port of Haifa to the city of Safed.

Witnesses described an explosion that engulfed the vehicle in a fireball and blew off its roof.

Israeli buses on Sunday morning are usually packed with soldiers returning to base after weekend leave.

The explosion occurred four days after a bomb at an international students' center in Jerusalem's Hebrew University killed seven people, including five Americans.

STRICT CURFEW ENFORCED ON NABLUS

Israeli occupation soldiers pried open boarded-up shops and searched houses in Nablus on Saturday, pressing their latest siege to round up suspected Resistance activists' cells Israel says are responsible for recent attacks.

Bulldozers piled up soil and rubble to block the entrances to Nablus' Old City while tanks and armored vehicles crawled through its empty streets, enforcing a strict curfew on the city of about 200,000.

Witnesses said several people were arrested Saturday in addition to the 50 rounded up Friday, the first day of the army crackdown which followed two bombings in Jerusalem last week.

Armed with hammers and metal bars, Israeli occupation soldiers wound through the casbah's narrow alleys, opening shuttered shop fronts and searching houses. In one instance, filmed by Associated Press Television News, a Palestinian man led the way as troops entered an alley and searched a shop.

PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS FORCED TO LEAD SEARCHES

The circumstances of the search were not clear. Palestinians and human rights groups said that Israeli troops have forced Palestinian civilians to lead troops in potentially dangerous searches.

An army spokesman, Olivier Rafowicz, denied the man was being used as a human shield and said the search was part of Israel's ongoing war on terrorism.

Israeli officials say Nablus has replaced nearby Jenin as the main hub of Palestinian Resistance cells responsible for attacks in the past two weeks.

SHARON WILLING TO YEHIYEH & PERES TO MEET MUBARAK MONDAY

Despite the recent attacks and Israel's stepped-up siege, Israeli officials suggested Saturday that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was willing to meet with the new Palestinian interior minister, Abdel Razak Yehiyeh.

"It could be, it depends on the developments in the situation," said Sharon's spokesman, Raanan Gissin.

Sharon has not met with top Palestinian officials for months, foreign Minister Shimon Peres, has held several meetings recently with Yehiyeh and the new finance minister, Salam Fayed.

No date for a meeting has been set, and the Israelis were waiting to see if the Palestinians made good on promises to reform the Palestinian Authority, Gissin claimed.

Peres, meanwhile, plans to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Monday in Cairo, a Peres adviser, Yoram Dori said.

FORMER ARAFAT ADVISER LAUNCHES NEW PALESTINIAN POLITICAL PARTY

Also Saturday, a former Arafat adviser, Bassam Abu Sharif, launched a political party he said would promote democracy, implement reforms in the Palestinian government and fight corruption.

The Palestine Democratic Party would serve as "constructive opposition" to the Palestinian Authority, Abu Sharif said from Amman, Jordan, where the initiative was launched.

PHOTO CAPTION

Buses have often been targeted by Palestinian Resistance. Nine Israelis at least were killed in an attack on bus in Israel, Sunday, Aug