Abbas postpones Sharon meeting

Abbas [left] is under pressure over the issue of Palestinian prisoners

Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has postponed a meeting with his Israeli counterpart, Ariel Sharon, because of an internal crisis, Palestinian officials have said.

Palestinian officials told the BBC the main reason for the decision was the pressure being placed on Mr Abbas - who is widely known as Abu Mazen - over the issue of prisoner releases.

The officials said there was deep disappointment on the Palestinian side that the Israeli cabinet approved the release of only a few hundred of the estimated 6,000 Palestinian prisoners.

The meeting had been due to take place on Wednesday.

News of the delay came as Israeli police confirmed that an explosion in a rural village in Israel, which left one woman dead, was caused by a suicide bomber.

A statement sent to journalists in Jerusalem by the militant group, Islamic Jihad said it was responsible for the attack.

An Israeli woman died in the suicide bomb

But a spokesman for the group told the BBC it was sticking to the truce with Israel announced last month.

Israel on Sunday said it planned to release more Palestinian prisoners, but that militants from the Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups would not be eligible.

Abu Mazen has been pressing Israel to free more prisoners.

BBC correspondent David Chazan in Jerusalem says Abu Mazen feels that if Israel does not do so, the peace process may be jeopardised because it will be difficult for him to convince the militants to stick to the ceasefire.

Israel, however, wants him to crush the militant groups by force.

That is something Abu Mazen has so far rejected because he fears it could trigger a Palestinian civil war, our correspondent adds.

Woman killed

Monday's explosion destroyed a house in the village of Kfar Yabetz, just a few kilometres from the West Bank, on Monday night.

An elderly woman was killed in the blast, as was the bomber - named in the Islamic Jihad statement as 22-year-old Ahmed Yihya from a village near Jenin.

It is thought that his device went off prematurely.

Initially a gas explosion was suspected. However Israeli police told Haaretz newspaper that they found parts of the bomb in the house debris and the building's gas supply was still intact.