OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 24 August — Israel has halted the step by step military withdrawal from reoccupied Palestinian areas, the head of the Israeli Army central command Moshe Kaplinsky said yesterday.

Kaplinsky met with West Bank national security commander Haj Ismail in Jerusalem yesterday to discuss a possible Israeli troop withdrawal from the southern West Bank city of Hebron. Israeli radio reported that at the meeting Israel called for more Palestinian operations against attackers before withdrawal from Hebron and other towns could be considered.

Kaplinsky told the Palestinians there will be no more army withdrawals from reoccupied Palestinian areas until Yasser Arafat’s security forces get tough with hard-liners. But Palestinian groups have vowed to continue attacks on Israelis.

Kaplinsky, told his Palestinian counterpart that there would be "no change to anything on the security side at this stage."

"A change on the ground depends on the long-term security situation and on Palestinian action against attackers," the statement said.

Arafat’s adviser Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP the meeting with the Israeli side to discuss expanding the Israeli pullback had brought "no progress".

"The Israeli side refused to respect the engagements it had undertaken under the plans dubbed ‘Gaza-Bethlehem First’ and that should have resulted in a withdrawal from Hebron," he said. The redeployment from areas of the West Bank reoccupied since mid-June is designed as a confidence-building measure to alleviate conditions for the territory’s population.

The Israeli pullback kicked off Monday night with a withdrawal from Bethlehem, just south of Jerusalem. But the plan for a staged withdrawal has been rejected by Palestinian factions, who say it undermines their armed struggle against the Israeli occupation.

At a meeting with Palestinian groups on Thursday, Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razaq Al-Yahya laid out his vision of the plan he developed with Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer.

Hamas official Ismail Haniya said his group "affirms its rejection of the plan, which is aimed at putting an end to the intifada, perpetuating the occupation, ensuring the security of the Zionist entity and dividing Palestinian ranks."

Islamic Jihad official Mohammed Al-Hindi also reiterated his group’s rejection of the plan.

Both groups have threatened to increase their attacks to cripple the plan.

In other developments yesterday Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinians who allegedly tried to infiltrate a Jewish settlement.

The Palestinians were shot dead in exchanges of fire with troops after they were spotted near the security fence at the Kfar Darom settlement in the Gaza Strip, according to the army.

The Israeli Army said troops were searching for a third Palestinian who may have been wounded in the incident.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group linked to President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for the attempted raid.

"The Palestinians are failing the test," said Dore Gold, an aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, referring to the plan whereby Palestinian security forces would reduce violence in Gaza in return for Israel easing its military clampdown.

The army yesterday demolished the house of a Hamas leader it accused of masterminding a deadly hotel bombing in March that triggered a major invasion of the West Bank. The army razed the Tulkarm house of Muhanned Shreim, a leader of the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades.

Israel has started a systematic policy of destroying the houses of bombers and threatening any of their relatives who knew of the planned attack with expulsion to the Gaza Strip. Israel’s public security minister also called for the destruction of the houses of four Palestinians who allegedly used their East Jerusalem residency permits to organize a string of attacks inside Israel.

In Paris, an international task force including members of the "Quartet" of Middle East peace brokers raised concerns yesterday about what it called "the deteriorating Palestinian humanitarian situation". "It (the task force) reiterated the Quartet’s call for full, safe and unfettered access for international and humanitarian personnel," it said in a statement released after two-day of talks with Palestinian and Israeli officials in Paris. The International Task Force on Reform groups the "Quartet" of the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations with the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and donor countries such as Japan and Norway.

The statement did not elaborate on the task force’s concerns for Palestinians’ conditions.