GAZA CITY, July 13 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Palestinian resistance movements Hamas and Islamic Jihad threatened Sunday, July 13, to end their freeze on anti-Israeli attacks if the Palestinian Authority attempted to confiscate their weapons.

"If the Palestinian Authority tries to confiscate our weapons they will force Islamic Jihad and Hamas to cancel the hudna (truce)," said a joint statement received here according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"If the Palestinian Authority tries to confiscate our weapons the responsibility for the results lies with the Palestinian Authority."

Hamas and Islamic Jihad both agreed to a three-month halt to anti-Israeli attacks last month in an exchange to an immediate end to all forms of aggressions against Palestinians, including house demolitions, land razzings, assassinations, detentions and deportations".

Palestinian authorities have come under pressure to crack down and disarm resistance groups although security sources deny that any campaign of disarmament has begun.

"If the Palestinian security department decides to confiscate the resistance weapons ... this is a red line which we cannot ever cross," the statement added.

Hamas political leader Abdul Aziz al-Rantissi later told AFP that none of its weapons had so far been confiscated, adding: "There is an agreement between us and the Palestinian Authority for there to be no confiscation."

Mohammed al-Hindi, a leader of Islamic Jihad, also told AFP that none of its weapons had been seized.

"This statement is because the occupation is still in our land," he added.

Colonel Rashid Abushbakk, head of Preventive Security in Gaza, insisted the Palestinian Authority was not carrying out any measures likely to endanger the truce.

"The Palestinian Authority is working to impose control on the areas which are under our control but this does not conflict with the agreements with the Palestinian factions under hudna," he told AFP.

"It is our right to continue in our activities to protect security and general situation."

Meanwhile in Ramallah, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov held talks with Yasser Arafat Sunday, snubbing calls by Israel to boycott the veteran Palestinian leader.

Ivanov said that Russia, one of the four co-sponsors of the roadmap for peace, wanted to see both the Palestinians and Israel fulfill the commitments laid down in the plan which aims to form an independent Palestinian state by 2005.

"We call on both sides to implement obligations in the roadmap which will lead to a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel," Ivanov told reporters after the meeting.

Arafat thanked Russia for its support and repeated calls for international observers to be sent to the region.

"We need to speed up the process of sending international observers in order to implement the roadmap," he said.

The meeting came amid a campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to persuade foreign governments to boycott Arafat, accusing him of trying to undermine his own prime minister Mahmud Abbas, who is leading the Palestinians in ongoing peace talks.

Sharon was quoted as saying in an interview with the leading Norwegian daily Aftenposten Sunday: "There has to be a common approach to remove Arafat from all positions.

"There is no secret that Yasser Arafat does what he can to work against Mahmud Abbas."

Asked about Sharon's stance, Arafat made a reference to the notorious massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon carried out by Israel's Christian militia allies in 1982 when Sharon was defense minister.

"Let him remember Sabra and Chatila and Beirut," said Arafat.

Israeli Druze General In Control Of The West Bank, Gaza

Moving to occupied Jerusalem, General Youssef Michleb took up his post Sunday as the new "coordinator" of Israeli military occupation activities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the army said in a statement.

Michleb, who is the first Druze to hold such a senior Israeli army post, is taking over from General Amos Gilad who has left the army.

A handover ceremony was held at the Erez border post between the Gaza Strip and Egypt in the presence of Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz.

"We must all use our experience and wisdom to bring peace and stability to the region," Michleb said at the ceremony.

‘kidnap’

Also in occupied Jerusalem, Israel Sunday called on the Palestinian authorities to find the kidnappers of a taxi driver missing since Friday who was thought to have been abducted by Palestinian groups in the West Bank.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told a cabinet meeting here Sunday that it was thought that the abduction of Eliahu Goriel was the work of "terrorist elements".

"All efforts are being made to bring the affair to a happy conclusion," Mofaz said, according to a government communiqué.

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said that Israel was looking to the Palestinian authorities to find the taxi driver and bring the kidnappers to justice.

"If it turns out to be a kidnapping, it is very serious and we await action from the Palestinian Authority to resolve the problem without our intervention," Shalom told public radio.

An Israeli army statement had earlier said that "in light of the security assessments made today, there is a sincere concern that terrorist motives stand behind Gorel's kidnapping".

Police, troops and members of the Shin Beth security service were continuing their efforts to locate 61-year-old Gorel.

Gorel telephoned his family from the Ramallah area of the West Bank Saturday saying he was well, before the call was cut off.

Subsequently a man "with an Arab accent" telephoned to say Gorel, who lives in Ramat Gan, north of Tel Aviv, had been kidnapped but no harm would come to him.

Gorel's car was found undamaged and with the engine still running in the Beit Hanina district of Arab east Jerusalem, some 10 kilometres (six miles) from Ramallah.

He had disappeared after taking two passengers from Tel Aviv to a hotel in west Jerusalem.

Army sources would not be drawn on why they believed "terrorists" were behind the abduction.

Israeli police chief Shlomo Aharoniski had earlier said police did not yet know the reason for Gorel's disappearance or whether it was linked to the prisoners question.

Last week the Israeli government infuriated the Palestinians by deciding to free only 350 of some 6,000 prisoners being held as part of steps towards peace, and ruling out releasing members of resistance movements such as Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

The groups have declared a temporary truce, conditional on the release of all prisoners among other concessions.

At a demonstration on Friday, July 11, in the Gaza Strip's Jabalya refugee camp a senior Hamas official, Nizar Nayyan said, "If the prisoners are released during the truce, good. If not, we will kidnap Jewish soldiers until the release of the last Palestinian held in an Israeli jail."