RAMALLAH: Front-running Palestinian presidential candidate Mahmoud Abbas cancelled a campaign stop planned in Jerusalem on Friday, citing concerns about Israeli security arrangements, and Israeli authorities expelled a second candidate who tried to pray in the city.

Abbas, the overwhelming front-runner in Sunday's election, had been tentatively scheduled to travel to Jerusalem on Friday to pray at the al-Aqsa mosque, hold a rally and tour the Old City.

A senior official with Abbas' campaign, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel wanted to provide Abbas a large security detail, concerned that Jewish extremists might attack him.

Abbas decided that being surrounded by Israeli security forces during a stop in front of his own people would have been embarrassing, the official said.

Instead, Abbas planned a campaign appearance later on Friday in Beir Naballah, a Palestinian town on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

Also on Friday, candidate Mustafa Barghouti, who is running a distant second to Abbas, was detained by police as he tried to enter the Old City to pray at the al Aqsa mosque. After about an hour of questioning, he was escorted to a West Bank checkpoint and released.

It was the second time Jerusalem police have arrested Barghouti, who lives in the West Bank, during the campaign.

Israeli authorities said Barghouti had violated an agreement not to campaign at the sensitive mosque compound, where thousands of people pray on Fridays.

Israel has agreed to allow Palestinians living in Jerusalem to participate in Sunday's election and permitted limited campaigning in the city. In reality, the situation has been more complicated.

According to Israeli military sources, Palestinian militants attacked a car filled with Israeli civilians in a drive-by shooting outside the West Bank city of Nablus on Friday, killing one passenger and wounding the other three,

Meanwhile, Israel's Likud party signed coalition agreements with the Labour party and religious United Torah Judaism (UTJ) party on Thursday, securing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a parliamentary majority needed to implement his Gaza withdrawal plan.

The agreements will give Sharon a new coalition government with 66 seats in the 120 Knesset (parliament), clearing the way for his planned withdrawal from Gaza and perhaps peace talks with the Palestinians.

Besides Sharon's effort, the United States is providing both financial and technical assistance to the Palestinian elections due on Sunday, State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said on Thursday.

(China Daily 01/08/2005 page6)