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JERUSALEM, Monday (AFP)

The Middle East conflict erupted into a bloody Sunday as two Palestinian suicide bombings, at a crowded train station and a key road junction, as well as a deadly drive-by shooting, left at least seven people dead and scores injured.

In the worst incident a suicide bomber blew himself up at the station at Nahariya in northern Israel, killing three other people and wounding 36, in an attack which Israel blamed on an "incitement campaign" launched by the Palestinian Authority.

The Islamic resistance movement Hamas claimed responsibility for the suicide attack, which came as passengers were pouring off a train which had just arrived from Tel Aviv.

"This cowardly, terrorist act is the result of the campaign of incitement and hatred launched by the Palestinian Authority," government spokesman Avi Pazner told AFP.

But the authority's presidential secretary, Tayeb Abdelrahim, expressed "surprise" at the charge.

Another suicide bomber blew himself up at a major cross roads at Beit Lid, east of the Israeli coastal resort of Netanya, killing himself and leaving three people wounded, Israeli public television said, quoting police sources.

Earlier, two Israelis were killed and three wounded near Jiftlik, north of Jericho in the West Bank, when Palestinians opened fire with automatic weapons on a school mini-bus. Israeli helicopter gunships later launched attacks on Palestinian targets in Jericho, Ramallah and El Bireh in the West Bank, Palestinian witnesses said. In Ramallah, two missiles hit a building housing a police headquarters and offices of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), they said.

At El Bireh, two more missiles struck an office of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement while in Jericho a base of the Palestinian security forces was hit.

In the Gaza Strip overnight a Palestinian was killed by Israeli soldiers near Beit Hanoun in the north of the area, a Palestinian source said..

Meanwhile in Cairo Arab envoys said a new wave of suicide bombings was a response to Israel's occupation of Arab land and a call for the Jewish state to find a political settlement with the Palestinians. Against a backdrop of violence that claimed at least nine lives on Sunday, the top diplomats of the 22-member Arab League opened a biannual meeting here with calls for "rapid and effective action" to help the Palestinians. "This explosive situation has a single reason: the continuation of the occupation," Shaath said on the sidelines of the meeting of Arab foreign ministers.

"We condemn the violence against civilians, whether they are Palestinian or Israelis, but the important thing is that there is an aggression against Palestinian land," he told reporters.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said Israel "must start a political process and applying the Mitchell recommendations without wasting time, before passing to final status negotiations."

Meanwhile Israel's security cabinet voted to step up retaliatory attacks on Palestinian targets following a day of violence state television reported.

But in the four-hour meeting, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon again ruled out large-scale military operations for fear of international criticism, it said, opting instead to intensify tit-for-tat strikes after Palestinian attacks.

Earlier Libyan leader Muammer Gaddafi is proposing a single Arab policy towards Israel under which the 22 Arab states would recognise Israel if all Palestinian refugees are allowed back to their homes, Arab diplomatic sources said Sunday.

A special committee of eight Arab foreign ministers set up to discuss Gaddafi's "ideas" decided at the end of a meeting late Saturday that the proposal needed further discussion, said one source who attended the session.

Daddafi wants "an Arab initiative aimed at unanimous Arab recognition of Israel before the international community and acceptance of its right to live in peace among the countries of the region on three conditions," he said.

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