"Israel will continue to act against targets identified as human bombs, and unless the Palestinians decide to destroy the infrastructure of terrorist organizations, Israel will take care of it," he told a weekly cabinet meeting, public radio reported.

Seven Israeli helicopter strikes on the Gaza Strip since May 10 have left 27 people dead, including several civilians as well as six members of Hamas, which has carried out scores of anti-Israeli suicide bombings, the latest being an attack on a Jerusalem bus that killed 17 people on Wednesday.

In another sign of contradiction that has become almost an identical pattern of Sharon’s government, Israeli and Palestinian officials were reportedly near agreement on an Israeli withdrawal from parts of the Gaza Strip as a senior U.S. envoy began the task of implementing an international "roadmap" for peace.

Veteran diplomat John Wolf arrived late Saturday, June 14, amid stepped-up U.S. pressure on both sides to end one of the worst cycles of bloodshed in the 32-month-old conflict and advance on the peace plan championed by President George W. Bush.

The radio also said that Wolf, heading a 12-member U.S. team, began his work as peace monitor late Saturday by conferring with Avi Dichter, head of Israel's domestic intelligence service Shin Beth.

He was to meet Sharon, Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and military and security service officials Monday. Palestinian sources said he would also have talks with Palestinian officials.

Wolf, who has little Middle East experience, was named by Bush to oversee implementation of the plan that provides for a series of confidence-building measures ahead of the creation of a Palestinian state in 2005.

Israeli army radio said the military was preparing Sunday to pull out of the northern Gaza Strip following talks late Saturday on handing over security responsibility to the Palestinians.

The report said General Amos Gilad, coordinator of Israeli activities in the Palestinian occupied territories, offered the move in return for a Palestinian pledge to prevent resistance activists from launching anti-Israeli attacks from the evacuated areas.

The radio said that senior Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan agreed to the deal but also asked that the army quit one of the West Bank cities it has reoccupied for the past year.

The report did not say when the military might pull out of the northern Gaza Strip.

Dahlan was expected to demand a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the southern West Bank town of Bethlehem, and an end to the assassination of Palestinian activists and military incursions into Palestinian areas.

The Israelis, for their part, would ask Dahlan to submit "a detailed plan to combat terrorism" and would present him with a list of Palestinian activists wanted by Israel, Israeli public radio said.

In Cairo, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Sunday that his country is making every effort to stop an upsurge in Palestinian-Israeli violence but without "imposing a decision on anyone," reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"Egypt is deploying maximum efforts to give a push to the roadmap and end the violence, without imposing a decision on anyone," Mubarak said in a statement carried by the state-run Middle East News Agency.

"Our task is to help reduce the tension so that the parties can sit at the negotiating table," the Egyptian president said.

However, he stressed that a return to the negotiating table would not happen only "because of American or Egyptian or Saudi efforts" and that it was necessary for "Israel to make efforts".

Egypt, a traditional mediator since becoming the first Arab country to make peace with Israel, has been undertaking intensive efforts to convince Palestinian resistance organizations to observe a truce in their anti-Israeli attacks.

Within that context, an Egyptian political and security delegation arrived in the Gaza Strip to revive inter-factional talks and obtain a ceasefire to attacks on Israel, Palestinian officials said.

The delegation is led by General Mustapha Buheeri, an aide to Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who has been leading efforts for a resumption of the Palestinian national dialogue.

Islamic Jihad leader Mohammed al-Hindi told AFP that Buheeri would kick off bilateral talks with his movement, Hamas and the mainstream Fatah Sunday.

A meeting of the National and Islamic Forces, an umbrella group of all Palestinian factions, is expected to be held Monday.

They agreed that any security solution to the problem would not work simply because the crux of the conflict is the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Rogue outposts still come to being over Palestinian lands

The peace plan calls in the initial stages for the dismantling of outposts set up since Sharon took office in March 2001. Peace Now estimates they number more than 60.