WAS ISRAEL GAZA BOMB Israeli officials have expressed scepticism over the latest Palestinian security operation that has put the leader of the Islamic Hamas movement, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, under house arrest and resulted in hundreds of other Hamas activists being detained.

A spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, David Bar-Illan said the whole operation was a public relations exercise and didn't reflect a true desire to destroy the Hamas' infrastructure.

The Palestinian round-up began after a suicide bomb attack on an Israeli schoolbus in the Gaza Strip killed an Israeli soldier.

The BBC Jerusalem correspondent says the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, faces a tough decision -- how to satisfy Israeli demands for action against Palestinian militants without triggering open conflict among his own people.

Mr Arafat will chair his first cabinet meeting later today since the interim Middle East peace agreement was signed in Washington last week.