JERUSALEM, Israel – A car bomb exploded early yesterday near a Jewish shrine in the West Bank as hundreds of Israeli worshippers prayed there, causing no injuries but damaging nearby Palestinian Arab homes and underscoring the vulnerability of the Middle East truce declared last month.

Palestinian Arab leader Mahmoud Abbas, meanwhile, urged President Mubarak to intervene personally to ensure that both Israelis and Palestinian Arab factions adhere to an agreement reached last month, including a pledge of nonviolence.

Mr. Abbas, who met with Mr. Mubarak at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik, also said he expects the Palestinian Arab terrorist groups Islamic Jihad and Hamas to take part in a meeting of Palestinian Arab factions planned for mid-March in Cairo.

It was not clear whether the explosives went off prematurely or whether the Joseph’s Tomb shrine was even the target. The blast went off several hundred yards from the shrine, on the outskirts of Nablus.

The explosion blew out apartment and car windows and scorched storefronts. There was no claim of responsibility.

Joseph’s Tomb has been one of the flash points of fighting in the past four years of violence. At the start of the Palestinian Arab uprising, Israeli troops withdrew from the enclave, which was largely destroyed by Palestinian Arab terrorists.

Since then, the Israeli military has barred Jewish worshippers, except for special visits under army protection.

In Israel, Vice Premier Shimon Peres said yesterday that Mr. Abbas’s government is making progress toward imposing order – despite the Nablus bomb, last week’s Tel Aviv suicide bombing, and other attempts by Palestinian Arab terrorists to torpedo the peace movement.

Mr. Peres met Wednesday night in Tel Aviv with Palestinian Arab Cabinet Minister Mohammed Dahlan for talks on economic issues, the first high-level meeting between the sides since the nightclub bombing that killed five Israelis on Friday. That attack was claimed by the terrorist Islamic Jihad.

“There is a change, a deep change, and some of the things the Palestinians have done are worthy of praise,” Mr. Peres told Israel Army Radio, giving as one example the deployment of Palestinian Arab police in the Gaza Strip to prevent the firing of locally made Qassam rockets at Israeli targets.

“There is relative calm. Certainly, there are people trying to destroy peace efforts, that doesn’t surprise me,” he said.

Israeli security officials say Palestinian Arab security forces have arrested several Islamic Jihad activists since the Tel Aviv bombing. Overnight, Israeli troops arrested four more members of the group.

Mr. Peres said he discussed with Mr. Dahlan the possibility of Israel handing over 1,000 acres of greenhouses in Gaza settlements to the Palestinian Arabs after its planned withdrawal in the summer.