Jo Levy pointed at the paper fluttering on the communal noticeboard and asked a question that summed up the painful issue that confronts the exclusively Jewish settlement which she has made her home. "Look, see that, there's a house to rent," she said, "But will they be able to rent it to an Arab? Here, in this settlement? I don't think so."For the last nine years Ms Levy, an English teacher from Hampstead, London, has lived in Katzir, a settlement on a hilltop between the Mediterranean and the edge of the northern part of the West Bank. Usually, the place would be no different from scores of other Jewish settlements around Israel's front-lines - clusters of dull, neat, red-roofed, white-walled homes that could easily have been transported into the Middle East from the suburbs of an English new town.But not now. Katzir is the cause of a landmark Israeli Supreme Court judicial case which began when officials refused to allow an Israeli Arab family to move in.Katzir was set up as an "outpost" settlement nearly two decades ago to counterbalance the large Arab population in the valley below.When Ms Levy moved into Katzir in 1990, she had to endure a five-hour exam, and an interview with a psychiatrist, to ensure that she would be compatible with the 30 other families then living there.Those rules have since been relaxed, not least to accommodate the arrival of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, who now comprise a quarter of the settlement, which now has 300 families New residents are merely required to pass a graphology test But one law has remained in force here: no Arabs. Until this week.Yesterday Katzir was struggling to digest the shock of the ruling by the Israel Supreme Court which, after four years of procrastination, found that an Arab-Israeli couple - Adel and Iman Ka'adan - could not be barred from the settlement on the grounds that it was established solely for Jews. Though ring-fenced by cautious judicial qualifications, the decision struck at the heart of more than 50 years of Israeli policy."People here have Arab friends," said Ms Levy, "They get on well Arabs come here to build houses People get to know them They go to their weddings, and have them over. But the problem is they don't want them to live next door."Ms Levy and her partner, Alec Marks, a computer programme designer, are an exception.

They would welcome the arrival of Arabs and make no secret of their feelings to their fellow residents But they are evidently a minority. "We know 80 per cent of the people here would be against it," said Mr Marks, "It is peculiar living in a town when you can decide not to accept someone if you don't like what he is. But we need to move beyond this, into the 21st century"Valodia, a Soviet immigrant who moved in four years ago said: "We are 100 per cent against this. It's not that we don't like them, it is just that they should have their areas and we should have ours."Mr Ka'adan, a 44-year-old nurse, says he simply wants to move to Katzir for his children's sake. He says the nearby Arab town he is leaving is a ghost town, with "nothing for the kids, no proper sewage, and a poor education system."The court decision is a breakthrough for him and his fellow Arab Israelis.

"I believe I have opened a window for other Arabs who want to decide where they want to live."* Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat yesterday that Middle East peace prospects were improving."We met here in a very friendly atmosphere overturned so many obstacles." he told a brief news conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. "We have great hopes that the Israel, Syria, Lebanon tracks could resume soon, which would be the end of the problem of the Middle East." Mr Mubarak said.. As relief operations struggled in torrential rain in southern Mozambique yesterday, health experts said they believed a cholera epidemic was breaking out among the 250,000 people left homeless by the floods. As relief operations struggled in torrential rain in southern Mozambique yesterday, health experts said they believed a cholera epidemic was breaking out among the 250,000 people left homeless by the floods. Although the World Health Organisation (WHO) stopped short of formally declaring an epidemic of the highly contagious disease - which is spread through dirty water and causes severe dehydration - doctors confirmed alarming figures about its extent in areas where cholera is not endemic.At the José Macamo hospital on the outskirts of the capital, Maputo, 52 out of 71 cholera cases diagnosed in the city are being treated in spartan isolation wards set up in seven large tents by the main road.Dr Lieve Van de Paal, a WHO specialist on cholera, said: "Three weeks ago there were 10 cases, confirmed by stool tests, in Maputo. We have seen the figure increase each week to 21, then 56, and this week 71. The increase in the figures indicates an epidemic."The tents, ringed by white sheeting and identified by a roughly painted cardboard sign bearing the word "cholera" in bright red, are staffed by doctors and nurses in masks, latex gloves and plastic aprons.

Visitors must rinse their shoes in basins of chlorine.A doctor said: "The patients are from the bairas [poor districts] of Maputo where the flooding hit first and destroyed the sanitation, such as it was. Cholera happens when faeces are mixed into the drinking water." Dr Van de Paal said: "Cholera can be effectively treated, but the main concern is to get people isolated as soon as possible."Although the figure for malaria is at present morealarming - Maputo has 22,207 cases against 9,546 in the same week last year - cholera spreads rapidly once it has reached the epidemic stage. As with malaria, which is spread by mosquitoes, there is no effective vaccine.Whereas cholera is endemic in Mozambique's flooded plains - there are 1,025 cases already in the northern flood zone - the signs of its spread in the capital are worrying.The multi-million-pound international aid that has arrived in the past week is of little help as it is mostly save-and-rescue equipment as opposed to the water-cleansing apparatus needed at this stage of the emergency.Two Spanish field hospitals that arrived this week are from the Balkans and are equipped mainly for surgical work, said Dr Van de Paal.Dr Carlos Tiny, WHO country director, said: "The health situation is very worrying. Wells and latrines have been mixed up and there is stagnant water everywhere. This makes for good mosquito-breeding sites and bad drinking water."People who have fled the floods are camped in close proximity, which means that disease spreads fast, both because resources are scarce and mosquitoes carrying malaria only have a short distance to fly between the people they bite. Add to this the vulnerable immune systems of displaced people and you have a health crisis," he said.A cholera epidemic would only be formally declared after more statistics had been gathered in consultation with the Mozambican government, said Dr Tiny..

When Peter Hain summoned the Zimbabwean High Commissioner, Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, to his office yesterday, diplomatic niceties were stretched to breaking point. When Peter Hain summoned the Zimbabwean High Commissioner, Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, to his office yesterday, diplomatic niceties were stretched to breaking point. Outside the Foreign Office Minister's window, tourists were strolling around Horseguards Parade, but inside his thickly carpeted office the ambience was far from tranquil.Mr Hain forced Mr Mumbengegwi to stand throughout the five-minute meeting as he was told of the Government's anger over the opening of its diplomatic bags in Harare.He delivered a searing attack on the "unprecedented" breach of international protocol, before handing the High Commissioner an official protest letter. "The meeting was cold, critical and firm," an FCO insider said.Watched over by an election poster of Nelson Mandela, the encounter embodied the tough new approach to African affairs of Mr Hain, who was born in Nairobi and grew up in South Africa. Foreign office sources insisted that it was not an unscripted outburst, but a "carefully thought out and deliberately intemperate" message.Since his promotion from the Welsh Office last August, the 50-year-old Labour MP for Neath has launched what appears to be a one-man crusade to resurrect the much-derided "ethical foreign policy" of Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary.