After a round of shuttle diplomacy by the new US Mideast envoy, Israel and the Palestinians agreed to resume talks on security cooperation yesterday, but the scope of the negotiations wasn't clear.

Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer suggested that the security talks resume, perhaps in a few days, spokesman Yarden Vatikai said yesterday.

Palestinian Planning Minister Nabil Shaath, however, said the talks would cover both security and political issues, such as putting together a plan for implementing recommendations from an international commission and from an Egyptian-Jordanian initiative.

Israel has said it wouldn't resume political negotiations while Palestinian violence continued. The Palestinian side has said security and political issues must be discussed as a package. With such discrepancies between the two sides, it wasn't clear how in-depth the talks would be or what specifically would be covered.

US envoy William Burns, in the Bush administration's first foray into shuttle diplomacy, entered into a second day of talks yesterday with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the autonomous West Bank town of Ramallah. A meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was planned for later in Jerusalem.

Yesterday began with new Israeli incursions in the Gaza Strip. Two Israeli tanks, an armoured vehicle and two bulldozers entered an area east of Karni and leveled land and olive farms, the witnesses said. One of the farm owners, Mohammed Daloul, 39, said two farms were destroyed and 70 olive trees cut.

The Israeli army said it was repairing fences separating Israeli and Palestinian territories. An army spokesman said the bulldozers knocked down the olive trees to get a better view over the fence.

The new US diplomatic initiative came against the backdrop of new violence in Israel: two car bombs exploded within hours of one another Sunday in downtown Jerusalem. The blasts caused no serious injuries. The radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the first explosion, the militant Islamic Jihad the second.

Burns condemned the bombings and said he had urged Arafat "to do everything possible to stop such attacks".

Yesterday in the West Bank town of Nablus, a Palestinian university student belonging to the militant group Hamas was seriously injured after an explosion in his house, Palestinian police said. The man, Aiman Halawe, 27, was trying to put together a bomb when it exploded, suffering burns to 60 percent of his body, police said.

The inquiry commission led by former US Senator George Mitchell had called for an end to violence and for a series of confidence-building measures, including a freeze on building in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.

Israeli Cabinet Secretary Gideon Saar said after Burns met with Sharon in Jerusalem on Sunday that the unilateral cease-fire Israel announced last week would continue, but that Sharon had told Burns that "this 'letting it pass' stage can't continue forever".

Saar said Burns praised Israel's restraint.

Israel had initially objected to the settlement clause of the Mitchell report, saying it would have to maintain some construction to account for "natural growth". There was also disagreement over timing _ with Israel saying the confidence-building measures would have to follow a period of quiet and the Palestinians saying all the measures would have to be implemented at the same time.

On Sunday, Sharon spokesman Ranaan Gissin said unequivocally that Israel told Burns it "accepted and adopted" the Mitchell report. He made no specific reference to the settlement issue, saying only that the sequence of events must start with a "complete and unconditional cessation of hostilities", followed by a cooling-off period and then "confidence-building measures as the third stage".

Channel Two, citing Palestinian sources, said the Palestinians had said they would be willing to accept a declaration on a settlement freeze to coincide with a cease-fire. The implementation of the freeze would be delayed while the cease-fire holds, the report said. Palestinian officials did not confirm the report, however.

Since fighting erupted last September, 478 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 85 on the Israeli side.

In an effort to show the Palestinians are to blame for the violence, Israel last week announced its troops would initiate no actions and only fire back in life-threatening situations. The Palestinians dismissed the move as insincere. Gunfights have continued, and recent days have seen an upswing in bombing attacks in Israel.