De Villepin will meet with his Israeli counterpart Silvan Shalom tomorrow following his arrival in the region, deputy Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Cecile Pozzo di Borgo told a press conference.

The purpose of de Villepin’s trip is to try to jumpstart the Middle East peace process, notably through the implementation of the international roadmap, as well as develop bilateral ties with both sides, she told reporters.

The roadmap — drafted by the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States — outlines steps to end more than 30 months of violence, halt Jewish settlement building in Palestinian territories and create a Palestinian state by 2005.

De Villepin will hold talks with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas and Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath while in Ramallah, as well as visit the Al-Amari refugee camp in the West Bank town, Pozzo di Borgo told reporters.

The French minister will visit Jerusalem’s Hebrew University tomorrow, the ministry said, noting that his agenda had not yet been finalized. Shaath said earlier this month following talks with de Villepin in Paris that the French minister was planning to meet with Arafat in the West Bank.

A Palestinian woman on a hunger strike for 20 days was hospitalized yesterday, said the Prisoners Club, an advocacy group based in Bethlehem.

Itaf al-Ayam, a member of the Islamic Jihad, was arrested six months ago by Israel and held in Neveh Tirsa, a women’s prison near Tel Aviv, the group said.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Army has decided to expel five Palestinian militants from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip, an army spokeswoman said yesterday.

The five are currently held in Israeli detention in an internment camp in the West Bank. Four belong to the Hamas movement and the fifth is from the mainstream Fatah movement. The have been given one week to appeal the decision.

Israel decided last July to expel the families of militants as part of a series of moves aimed at punishing Palestinians suspected of aiding suicide bombers and other militants. The first expulsions took place in September, after the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the West Bank and Gaza Strip constituted one territorial entity and thus an expulsion would not be a deportation as defined by article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Palestinians have called the expulsions a “war crime”.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat escaped an anthrax assassination attempt three weeks ago, his national security advisor claimed in an interview with an Arabic newspaper published yesterday.

Someone mailed the veteran leader a letter containing a suspect powder, but his security services prevented it from reaching him, Hani Al-Hassan told the London-based Al-Hayat daily.

“The presidential security services submitted the letter to the usual control measures before attempting to open it and discovered it contained a powder,” he said.

“At first, we didn’t know what kind of powder it was and we didn’t waste time in having it analyzed in a safe location,” he said, claiming it was found to contain the deadly bacteria.