Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said yesterday he was ready to take action against militant groups if Israel halted missile strikes and other attacks designed to crush them.

A crackdown on militants behind suicide bombings would help put a US peace ?road map? on track. But, echoing concerns that have dissuaded Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas from cracking down, Arafat said he would not risk a civil war.

?I am prepared to implement the law (against militants) on condition Israel stops its attacks,? Arafat said in an interview at his devastated headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. But he did not say what steps he would take. ?I am not prepared to fuel a Palestinian civil war. I am, however, prepared to implement the law on condition Israel halts its attacks,? he said.

Arafat, largely confined to his Ramallah base since late 2001, said he had ordered the arrests of militant leaders before in the nearly three-year-old uprising for an independent Palestinian state and that he was ready to do so again. Arafat has been frozen out of peacemaking. The United States and Israel accuse him of inciting violence, a charge he denies.

He spoke after Israel carried out its third military strike against the militant Islamic group Hamas in the Gaza Strip since a suicide bombing killed 21 people in Jerusalem last Tuesday and a shaky truce collapsed after seven weeks. The truce, declared by militants under heavy pressure on June 29, was considered vital to the road map which sets out reciprocal steps for ending the violence and establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza by 2005. Israel botched Tuesday's attack against Hamas gunmen. Two of them survived the barrage on their car in Jabalya refugee camp but an elderly bystander was killed and about 20 people wounded, including six children, Palestinian medics said.

Washington called to restrain the Jewish state

In the latest swoop against militants, who have killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide attacks, Israeli forces arrested 32 Palestinians in the West Bank overnight, including one Hamas man suspected of plotting a suicide bomb attack, the army said.

Arafat said he wanted to embrace the road map, which has been backed by Abbas. He blamed the collapse of the truce on Israel and called on Washington to restrain the Jewish state.

?Isn't the road map binding on Israel too? We were in control many times including our success in reaching a ceasefire but it was violated many times in a persistent and rude manner by most Israeli political and military leaders,? he said. Arafat has handed some power to Abbas, whom he named prime minister four months ago. Palestinian sources say he has tried since then to limit Abbas's powers. In Tuesday's attack in Gaza, helicopters fired a salvo of missiles at a car during the evening rush hour.

In Washington, US State Department spokesman Philip Reeker criticised the strike: ?The killing of innocents has got to stop. We have to see an end to terror and violence.?

The attack was carried out days after Israel assassinated a senior Hamas leader and killed four members of the group's military wing, in each case with helicopter missiles fired into Gaza City, in response to the Jerusalem bus bombing. Israel has said it will continue tracking down and killing Hamas leaders, many of whom have now gone into hiding. Hamas has vowed revenge attacks.

Wafa Amr