An Internet site claiming to represent al-Qaida says the terrorist network has decided to launch suicide attacks against a new target, Israel, and says its goal is the destruction of the Jewish state.

U.S. government officials said they believe the Web site, www.mojahedoon.net, indeed speaks for al-Qaida, and that intelligence officers have been monitoring it for some time.

News of al-Qaida’s new anti-Israel focus comes only a week after two terrorist attacks against Israeli interests in Kenya that U.S. officials believe were carried out by al-Qaida. A suicide car bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel near Mombasa killed 10 Kenyans and three Israelis, along with three terrorists, Nov. 28. In a separate attack minutes earlier, several air-to-ground missiles were fired at an Israeli passenger jet flying from Kenya to Tel Aviv, but no one was injured.

Terrorism experts say al-Qaida’s announced entry into the already incendiary struggle between Palestinians and Israelis is a disturbing development that’s likely to set off new violence.

“The idea that al-Qaida is establishing a special cell to focus on Israelis is horrifying news,” said Rachel Bronson, director of Middle East Studies for the private Council on Foreign Relations. Al-Qaida’s role could be extremely destabilizing, she added, because “it will be weighing in on the side of Hamas,” the Palestinian Islamic group that launches suicide bombings against Israeli civilians and has been deemed a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. Hamas staunchly opposes peace with Israel and declares its entire territory Muslim land.

The terror group’s announcement came shortly before President Bush, meeting at the White House with leaders of Kenya and Ethiopia, said that progress was being made against al-Qaida. “Slowly but surely we’re dismantling an al-Qaida network, and that inures to the benefit of all the countries of the world,” Bush said.

Earlier this week, the Palestinian Authority denied accusations by a top Israeli military official that al-Qaida already is operating in the West Bank and Gaza. “These are cheap and untrue allegations,” the Palestinian Authority said in a statement released after a Cabinet meeting in Ramallah.

The Web site announced formation of a new branch of Osama bin Laden’s terror network, the Islamic al-Qaida Organization in Palestine, and said it will work to undermine any negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The talks, now suspended, have been aimed at arranging an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in exchange for an end to Palestinian suicide bombings in Israel. The al-Qaida site said it rejects this course.

“Islamic al-Qaida in Palestine joins its voice with the voices of the mujahideen in Palestine in its resistance to the partial and submissive solutions (land for peace), and will accept nothing but the full liberation of the Palestinian land,” said the al-Qaida Web site, which was originally brought to light publicly and translated from the Arabic by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a translation and research service.

The new Palestinian arm of al-Qaida “will defeat the Zionist Jewish invaders (and) return them to the place … whence they came,” the Internet site said.

The site also advises Hamas that it should stop engaging in shootouts with Palestinian security forces loyal to PLO leader Yasser Arafat, at least for now. The two groups of gunmen have been fighting sporadically for months over a range of issues, including turf control in Gaza and vengeance for past showdowns between the two sides.

“We call to the mujahideen in the al-Nusseirat camp in the Gaza Strip to immediately stop the fighting between Hamas and the people of the Palestinian Authority,” the Web site says.

Bronson said that while al-Qaida appears in this case to be mediating between the secular Palestinian Authority and the fundamentalist Muslim Hamas, bin Laden’s true sympathies lie with Hamas.

“This means that when the Palestinian Authority takes on Hamas, it will also be taking on bin Laden, which could be a problem” for Arafat, given the widespread admiration for bin Laden among many Palestinians, she said.

For years bin Laden and al-Qaida spoke mostly of Muslims’ obligation to oust U.S. military forces and the Saudi royal family from Saudi Arabia. In more recent years, bin Laden has begun mentioning the Palestinians’ struggle in his list of perceived humiliations of Muslims worldwide, usually in the same breath with the plight of the Kashmiris, Bosnians, Afghanis and Iraqis.

Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert with the Rand Corp. research group, said that al-Qaida’s new attacks on Israel stem from “terrorists looking for work.

“Al-Qaida desperately wants to appear relevant, to be a player in Middle Eastern politics,” Hoffman said.

Al-Qaida grew in the 1990s, during the period of the most promising Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, in part by whipping up rage among Muslim radicals against any peace with Israel, Hoffman said. This Web site builds on that agenda, he added, and “amounts to pure cynicism.”