Fractious UN set for Arafat vote

Arafat supporters have vowed to fight any attempt to remove him

The United Nations Security Council is due to vote later on Tuesday on Israel's decision to "remove" Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The vote comes a day after Israeli and Palestinian diplomats traded bitter insults during a debate on the issue.

Israel's ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman, denounced the Palestinian leader as a "professional terrorist", prompting the Palestinian representative to walk out of the session.

Israel has faced almost global condemnation for its security cabinet decision in principle last Thursday to remove the Palestinian leader using unspecified means.

Ahead of the vote, Israel has dismissed an offer by Mr Arafat's security adviser of an indefinite ceasefire.

ARAFAT'S TRAVELS 1957: Left Egypt for Kuwait, after graduating 1968: To Jordan, directed raids into Israel 1970: Forced from Jordan and moved to Lebanon 1982: Left Lebanon following Israeli invasion 1982-94: Mainly based in Tunis with PLO leaders 1993: Signed Oslo Accords in Washington 1994: To Gaza, to set up Palestinian Authority 2001-03: Confined to his Ramallah HQ Arafat's driving ambition Draft resolution in full

Jibril Rajoub told Israeli state radio that the Palestinian leadership could ensure that militant groups, such as Hamas, would respect a ceasefire.

But a spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Israel would not be "deceived" by such a move.

"We are not going to be lulled into this honey trap of a ceasefire," Ranan Gissin told French news agency AFP.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops have killed a suspected Palestinian militant in a village near the West Bank city of Hebron.

Reports say troops supported by tanks and helicopters surrounded a house and shot dead a member of the Islamic Jihad group as he tried to flee.

Language modified

Arafat has been confined to his compound for almost two years

The resolution before Tuesday's meeting of the Security Council, which is sponsored by Syria, demands that Israel does not harm or deport Mr Arafat.

Syria has already modified some of the resolution's language in an attempt to broaden support for the measure and prevent a US veto.

It has added a phrase expressing "grave concern" at the recent rise in violence.

The text now also condemns both Palestinian suicide bombings and Israel's targeted assassinations of Palestinian militants for causing "enormous suffering and many innocent victims".

But the BBC's Greg Barrow, at the UN in New York, says the new text does not appear to meet US demands that it apportion equal blame for the current escalation in violence to specific Palestinian groups - including Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

Supporters of the new resolution say they still hope to put it to a vote in the next few hours.

But at the same time they are not ruling out the possibility of further delays as efforts are made to reach agreement on a text that will get past, our correspondent adds.

Israel has largely confined Mr Arafat to his compound in Ramallah since December 2001.