Israel help to stir up further trouble in Gaza

Unnamed Israeli sources have apparently told the BBC that it will allow security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to be supplied with weapons from third countries. Israel says it will strictly control who receives the weapons. Israel said it had decided to authorise deliveries of light weapons and ammunition to the presidential guard.

"At issue are several hundred weapons imported from foreign countries which will be transferred under tight control by us. We will know exactly to whom and where they are being delivered," a defence ministry official told the AFP news agency.

But Mr Abbas' office denied the story. Mr Abbas' spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina, however, said the "announcement made by the Israeli defence ministry is false".

Meanwhile the Daily Telegraph in London reports ..."Mr Abbas, trying to persuade Hamas to drop its traditional refusal to accept Israel's right to exist, seized on a seven-page document written inside an Israeli prison by Palestinian political prisoners.(No doubt helpfully supplied by Mr Olmert or Ms Livni to help things along between Hamas and Fatah)

The prisoners represent not just Hamas, but all major factions, including Mr Abbas's own Fatah movement and Islamic Jihad.

It was debated inside high-security cells and drawn up under the eyes of prison guards during exercise periods.

In parts verbose and repetitive, the document nevertheless implies an acceptance of the right of Israel by claiming a Palestinian homeland only on land occupied by Israel in 1967 - Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

If he could persuade the Hamas leadership to accept the 18-point prison accord it would mean the movement had dropped its original claim on all the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.

Mr Abbas gave the parties 10 days to accept the document as a common platform, and said he would call a referendum if they failed to do so."