The government has decided on a series of restricting measures on the West Bank Palestinian population in response to Sunday's drive-by shootings attack where three Israeli civilians were killed and six were wounded.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who is currently staying at his Sycamore Ranch, spoke with senior defense officials by telephone Sunday night to discuss Israel's response and decided to reimpose various restrictions on Palestinian traffic in the West Bank that had recently been lifted. The Israel Defense Forces will resume its encirclement of Hebron and Bethlehem, reinstate dismantled checkpoints around Hebron, Bethlehem and Ramallah and forbid private Palestinian cars to travel certain roads.

Israel also suspended security talks with the Palestinian Authority in protest. A security source slammed the PA as having no leadership, saying Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is working in a vacuum and that no force can make him fight terror, Israel Radio reported.

The suspension of contacts is temporary, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev. "In Israel, we have no desire to return to a reality of daily attacks against Israeli civilians," Regev said. "We want to send a very strong and sharp message to the Palestinians, and the temporary suspension of talks is that message."

The IDF will also restrict the traffic of private Palestinian cars on the Route 60 section between Adam Square in the Samaria and the Tapuah junction, as well as the road between Hebron and Jerusalem.

In addition, the IDF will beef up its forces in the southern West Bank and continue its large-scale arrest operations. It will also fortify some of the hitchhiking posts along major West Bank roads to protect hitchhikers from drive-by shootings such as Sunday's. Nevertheless, IDF officers warned, additional attacks on the roads are possible.

Government officials said they feared that Sunday's attacks represent the start of an effort by terrorist organizations to make the West Bank the focus of the violence, now that Israel has withdrawn from Gaza, which used to play this role. One source speculated that the attacks might also be part of the terrorist organizations' efforts to drum up support among the Palestinian public in the run-up to this winter's parliamentary elections. Most Palestinians, he explained, view attacks within the West Bank as more legitimate than attacks within Israel.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Authority's ruling Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for both attacks in two separate phone calls to news agencies in the territories. However, the IDF is skeptical of these claims, and officers speculated that Hamas was behind at least the first, more lethal, attack. Colonel Nitzan Alon, commander of the IDF's Etzion (Bethlehem) Brigade, noted that a significant portion of the attacks in the West Bank in recent months have been perpetrated by Hamas, but the organization has avoided taking responsibility, since it still officially claims to be adhering to the "lull" in the violence. In some of these cases, Fatah-affiliated groups have claimed responsibility in its stead, often in the hopes that Hezbollah will then pay them for the attacks.