TEL AVIV Ñ The United States plans to present to Israel and the Palestinian Authority a new framework for international supervision of the collapsed ceasefire in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israeli and PA sources said the Bush administration is drafting plans for a supervisory regime that will include U.S. and European observers. They said Washington has concluded that the U.S.-sponsored meetings between Israeli and Palestinian security officials are a failure and an alternative is required.

The PA has warned they will not return to the security meetings unless Israel ends its policy of assassinating suspected Palestinian insurgents and construction in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The last meeting on late Wednesday ended in failure.

"These meetings are very important and more than one an attack has been prevented by these meetings," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said. "This mechanism has worked well and will continue."

The violence continued overnight Friday in the West Bank. An Israeli teenager was killed in a Palestinian ambush as he was travelling near Jerusalem on late Thursday. Hours later, Israeli troops destroyed PA positions in the Ramallah suburb of Betunia.

The sources said Washington wants to implement a mechanism that will ensure the process set by the international commission headed by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell. The commission presented a series of recommendations that include separation of forces, the cessation of Israeli construction in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and peace talks between Israel and the PA.

U.S. envoy David Satterfield will arrive in the Middle East next week and present Washington's plans to both Israel and the PA. The sources said the United States wants to deploy international observers on a rotating basis in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to avoid being targeted by either Israelis or Palestinians.

The sources said Washington has decided to send 15 CIA agents to Israel to monitor the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The agents would be joined by other U.S. personnel and monitor all aspects of the Mitchell recommendations.

In his meetings in Cairo earlier this month, Satterfield urged Egyptian defense chiefs to increase coordination with Israel along the Gaza border with Egypt. Palestinians use the border area to smuggle weapons from Egypt.

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