PALESTINIAN fighters have revealed that Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese group backed by Iran, is offering to pay for attacks aimed at shattering the fragile truce with Israel.

Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, has made it clear that one suicide bomber in Tel Aviv could prompt him to abandon negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, and may even delay Israel’s disengagement from Gaza, which is planned for July.

In the first concrete evidence of Iranian interference in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the men, all on Israel’s most wanted list, said they had received payments of up to $9,000 (about £4,800) sent by Hezbollah to the West Bank for attacks against Israel during the past four years.

They said that most of the money from Hezbollah had been sent to Islamic Jihad, the militant fundamentalist group that has sent suicide bombers into Israeli cities. The men, members of the al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades — the military wing of Fatah, the secular group founded by Yasser Arafat — knew of the payments because they liaised with Islamic Jihad in their area, near the West Bank city of Nablus.

“They would send Islamic Jihad money in amounts of something like $4,000,” said Ala’a Sanakreh, the 27-year-old leader of the group. “It’s easy — they just use Western Union.”

He and his fellow fugitives sat in a house in the Balata refugee camp, which is under Israeli security control, their M16 rifles within reach, revolvers stuck down the back of their jeans.

Otherwise they looked like any young men in their trainers and baggy tops, but they were jumpy. Despite the current truce, the Israelis could come after them at any moment. They have a primitive but effective warning system of boys on rooftops overlooking the alleys of the camp.

Sanakreh said he had taken the money from Hezbollah when Arafat had stopped paying Fatah’s fighters. “We disagreed with the Islamic Jihad people because Hezbollah would send money only for attacking Israel. They did not take care of the shaheed (martyr) families. So we then stopped taking the money.”

According to Sanakreh, those who had since been offered money by Hezbollah had turned it down. Their leaders had made it clear that Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, should be given a chance to negotiate with the Israelis.

But Sanakreh said he had received a call from a Hezbollah representative in Beirut. Other militants in the West Bank, who would not be named, said the same man had called groups offering money to get them to mount an attack.

Abbas solidified an agreement to keep the peace two weeks ago in Cairo by persuading 13 of the most radical Palestinian groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, to co-operate.

Since then, the price of a bullet in Gaza has fallen from about $9 to $5. The sermons in the mosques are also evidence of a new era. Preachers are no longer calling for sacrifice, but guiding the faithful on which way to vote in Palestinian legislative elections this summer.

Islamic activists are mounting a strong challenge to Fatah and Hamas is debating whether to accept ministries in a post-election Palestinian government negotiating with Israel, which it does not recognise.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Michael Jackson: Not the final chapter
• Indian Army spends10m rupees on golf buggies
• Brüno toned down for 15 rating