TEL AVIV Ñ Israel has increased the security detail around government leaders amid fear of Palestinian assassination attempts.

The government has acknowledged tightening security around Israeli leaders amid threats of assassination. The figures being given extra protection include President Moshe Katsav, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Internal Security Minister Uzi Landau, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz and Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert.

The fear, officials said, is that an Israeli national or foreign journalist could get close enough to these figures to launch an assassination attempt.

"The intensity of the security situation fluctuates based on the information at hand," a government statement addressed to journalists said. The new measures were taken amid a new wave of arrests against Arab citizens suspected of helping Islamic suicide bombers against Jewish targets.

The arrests took place in several undisclosed Arab communities in northern Israel. Many of those arrested were Arabs who were illegally residing in the Jewish state. Others were members of Israel's Islamic fundamentalist movement.

The arrest of the Arabs in Israel led to information on plans by Islamic Jihad to send suicide bombers in the northern city of Haifa. On Sunday, a Palestinian suicide bomber from Jenin blew himself up in the Haifa suburb of Kiryat Motzkin.

Three days earlier, an Islamic suicide bomber from Jenin killed 14 Israelis in an attack in Jerusalem.

"The detainees are suspected of belonging to the Islamic Jihad, and their intention was to commit an attack in a crowded area in Haifa," a government statement said on Wednesday. "Further arrests were made of people suspected of providing aid to the terrorists both in entering Israel and providing hiding places."

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