If Israel’s pilots want to rattle the windows of Beirut with their sonic booms, the Hizbollah are saying, then Israel’s citizens can endure a few noisy explosions in the sky.General Gaby Ashkenazi was enjoying his Israeli Northern Command’s annual dinner when the first reports came in of “three loud explosions” over Kiryat Shmona Some Israeli children were sent into shelters. The Hizbollah were accused of breaching the Blue Line agreement with their airbursts – it was indeed a violation, just like the Israeli overflights – but no- one was hurt It’s a dangerous game. If just one splinter hits an Israeli, shells will come whiffling back across the border.But it doesn’t constitute a “powder keg”, let alone a “centre of world terror”. The latest press report to finger Lebanon claimed that one of Osama’s henchmen had turned up in Tyre, a largely Shia Muslim city that would brook no supporters of Mr bin Laden in its midst.A security source in southern Lebanon believes many of these tales are being generated by a private Israeli website. “There’s an ex-journalist who runs it and every time he’s told that Mr bin Laden’s in Beirut or Iranians are swarming through the Bekaa, he puts this stuff out,” the source said.”Then the Americans pick it up and it turns up on the New York front pages.”Mr Harri, the Prime Minister, has reason to be worried.

Lebanon is $32bn (£23bn) in debt and the Americans aren’t encouraging anyone to bail him out The Hizbollah have gone back on the US “terrorism” list. No Osama bin Laden, no al-Qa’ida, no powder kegs, no missiles, no Iranian Revolutionary Guards.The centre of world terror is quiet today.. A Palestinian gunman dressed as an Israeli soldier killed three Israelis at a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, hours before Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was to meet US President George W Bush at the White House. Bush at the White House.
Residents and the Israeli military said the gunman infiltrated the settlement of Hamra in the Jordan River Valley – part of the West Bank – took over a house on Wednesday evening and killed a woman and her daughter. Israeli soldiers stormed the house, killing the gunman, who had an M­16 assault rifle and a grenade, the army said.An Israeli soldier, shot shortly after the gunman entered the settlement, died of his wounds at a Jerusalem hospital, the army told radios.At least four people were wounded, including a child and two soldiers, Israel Radio reported. After initial reports that two gunmen had infiltrated the settlement, soldiers closed off the area and carried out intensive searches, but concluded early today that the gunman was alone.Yitzhak Orenstein, a security guard at the village on a road between the Adam Bridge over the Jordan River and Nablus, said residents were confined to their houses during the attack.

The gunman shot and killed a soldier in Orenstein’s patrol truck before a heavy exchange of fire broke out. Then the gunman entered a nearby home where the woman and her daughter were hiding.”He saw a house with lights on,” Orenstein told Israel Radio. “He knocked on the door and they opened the door for him since he was dressed in a soldier’s uniform. And then they were hit.”Minutes later a soldier shot the gunman through a window in the home.In a statement broadcast by a Lebanese TV station, the militant Hamas took responsibility.Israel hit back early on Thursday.

Witnesses said an Israeli warplane fired two missiles at a Palestinian prison and government complex in Nablus Eleven people were injured, none seriously. The Israeli military said the air strike was retaliation for the Hamra attack.Palestinian security officials said that several Hamas and Islamic Jihad prisoners at the Nablus jail – some of them senior militants wanted by Israel – were released by guards just prior to the Israeli airstrike. Guards at an apartment in nearby Jenin also released seven activists of the two groups, the officials said on condition of anonymity.A few hours earlier, police and civilians foiled an apparent suicide bombing just outside Jerusalem A bus driver alerted police to a suspicious passenger. Police and bystanders overpowered him and discovered he was wearing a belt with explosives, standard fare for a suicide bomber.The would­be bomber, identified in media reports as a 22­year­old from Nablus, was taken away by police for interrogation. Police blew up his explosives­laden belt in a huge ball of fire and smoke a safe distance from the road an hour later.The incidents of violence came as Sharon flew to the United States for a meeting today with Bush, his fourth in the past year. Sharon cut short a trip to Washington on 2 December when Palestinian suicide bombers struck in Haifa and Jerusalem, killing themselves and 25 other people.. The Afghan government made a desperate appeal to the United Nations yesterday to save the lives of up to 100 people trapped by an avalanche close to the Salang tunnel.