Jerusalem, Sunday

ISRAELI soldiers at a Gaza Strip border crossing shot at a British

diplomat's car, damaging its windscreen, after he failed to heed an

order to stop, both sides said yesterday.

Mr Peter Morrison, the cultural attache at the British consulate in

Jerusalem, was not injured in the incident which happened late on

Saturday night, when he was leaving Palestinian-ruled Gaza via Nahal Oz

checkpoint.

Military officials said soldiers ordered the car, bearing diplomatic

number plates, to stop. When it kept going, they fired in the air and

then at the car. The car stopped and it became clear the driver was a

British diplomat.

''Warning shots were fired over his car and at the time he was not

aware that there was any checkpoint here or any soldiers because he

couldn't see any soldiers. He drove on,'' said Consul General Richard

Dalton.

''When he saw the soldiers, he stopped and identified himself,''

Dalton said. A bullet slightly damaged the car's windscreen, he added.

Today near another crossing point from Gaza to Israel, Israeli troops

shot and seriously wounded a Palestinian they suspected was a suicide

bomber, army radio said.

* Israeli Ministers, briefed on security in the Palestinian self-rule

areas, said today that changes in the Israel-PLO peace deal might be

necessary to protect Jewish settlers.

Israel Radio reported that the head of army intelligence,

Major-General Uri Saguy, told the cabinet the Gaza Strip run by PLO

chief Yasser Arafat showed signs of ''Lebanonisation'' -- conflict

between armed militias.

The briefing, just before talks planned for Tuesday in Cairo on

extending self-rule to the rest of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, will

serve as the basis for a further cabinet discussion on Wednesday on the

peace deal.

Under the next stage of agreement, the Israeli army is to pull out of

Palestinian population centres in the West Bank on the eve of elections

to a self-rule council. -Reuter.