1.   Kiryat Arba is known as a hotbed of radical settler activity.

2.   Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated he will not hamper settler activity in east Jerusalem.

3.   Those jewels of recent settler activity, settlers and peace activists agree, are strangling Palestinian ambitions for a viable state.

4.   In a speech Saturday Arafat renewed his condemnation of settler activity in territories where Palestinians hope to create their own state.

5.   In an official statement, the cabinet urged Israel to take a political decision to halt settler activity.

6.   Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has meanwhile called for increased settler activity, which the Palestinians vow to oppose.

7.   The PLO has warned that expanding the settlement of Ephrat would threaten autonomy negotiations and has asked for an end to all settler activity in the West Bank.

8.   Israeli-Palestinian talks that resumed Wednesday in Jerusalem were overshadowed by Palestinian anger over the expansion of Jewish settler activity.

9.   PLO chairman Yasser Arafat has urged Israel to halt such settler activities amid Palestinian warnings that the expansion work could wreck negotiations on extending self-rule on the West Bank.

10.   The PLO has warned that extending the settlement of Ephrat would threaten autonomy negotiations and has asked for an end to all settler activity in the West Bank.