Egyptian police sources said Wednesday that authorities caught a Palestinian man wearing a suicide belt after he entered Egypt through a tunnel on the Gaza border, and planned to attack Israelis in the Sinai peninsula.

The arrest on the Egyptian side of the border town of Rafah on Tuesday led them to two Palestinian accomplices who had rented an apartment in the town, they added.

"Under questioning he said that he intended to travel to south Sinai to carry out a suicide bombing at one of the villages or resorts frequented by large numbers of Israelis," added one of the sources, who asked not to be named.

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Another 20 Palestinians and Egyptians, including Sinai Bedouin, were detained after further investigations.

Bombers have attacked south Sinai resorts three times in the past two and half years and the Egyptian police have attributed the attacks to a group of Islamists who are from the Sinai Bedouin community and sympathetic toward the Palestinians.

In October 2004, more than 30 people, including 11 Israelis, were killed in an attack in the Sinai resort town of Taba. Less than a year later, in July 2005, at least 70 people were killed in three blasts in Sharm el-Sheikh, the southernmost point of the Sinai Peninsula.

The sources named the two accomplices as Hisham Abu al-Walid and Emad Abu al-Qassam. They did not give the name of the man caught wearing the suicide belt.

Israelis have continued to visit the southern Sinai resorts, but Jerusalem has repeatedly issued warnings that an attack targeting them could be in the works.

Earlier Wednesday, Egyptian police found 240 old anti-tank mines and six artillery shells stashed in the mountains of central Sinai, a police source said.

The police suspect the owners planned to empty out the ordnance, left over from 20th century wars, and smuggle the explosive material to Palestinian groups in the neighboring Gaza Strip, added the source, who asked not to be named.

No one was present when police arrived and no arrests have been made, he added.

Israel frequently complains about arms smuggling across the Egypt-Gaza border. Egypt says it does its best to stop it.

Last week, Egyptian police found boxes with around 18,000 bullets hidden in a tunnel near the border with the Palestinian territories.

Earlier in the month they found rocket-propelled grenades and hand grenades hidden in the sand on the same border.