Israeli security chief warns of armed opposition to West Bank deal

Occupied Jerusalem: Israel's radical right-wing could launch attacks to prevent a deal that would hand over the occupied West Bank to Palestinians, an official said on Sunday.

"We discern a willingness among the far-right to resort to using guns in order to prevent progress in the diplomatic process," Yuval Diskin, head of the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency, told Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's cabinet.

In the occupied West Bank, settler violence against Palestinians and Israeli security forces has been on the increase.

Olmert reiterated at the cabinet session that such attacks were "intolerable". He had said Israel would have to withdraw from most of the territory.