NABLUS, West Bank - Palestinian security forces on Thursday arrested three suspects in the October assassination of an Israeli cabinet minister, meeting a key Israeli condition for lifting a travel ban on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The arrests in the killing of tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi were announced by the Palestinian intelligence chief in the West Bank town of Nablus, said Col. Talal Dweikat. He said the arrest order came directly from Arafat.

Israel has kept Arafat confined to the West Bank town of Ramallah since December, saying it would not let him leave until the people behind Zeevi's assassination were arrested. But on Thursday, Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the travel ban would only be lifted if the Palestinians arrested all those involved in the killing and brought them to trial.

Zeevi was shot and killed in the hallway of a Jerusalem hotel on Oct. 17. A radical PLO faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, carried out the assassination, saying it was avenging the August killing of its leader, Mustafa Zibri, also known as Abu Ali Mustafa. Zibri died in a targeted Israeli missile attack on his office.

Under Israeli pressure, Arafat arrested the leader of the PFLP, Ahmed Saadat, last month, but three other suspects remained at large.

At about 2 a.m. local time Thursday, Palestinian security forces stormed the three suspects' hideout in the West Bank city of Nablus, Dweikat said.

He identified the three men as Ahed Abu Gholmi, Basel Asmar and Hamdi Koran. Abu Gholmi is the West Bank leader of the PFLP's military wing, the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, and is suspected of having planned Zeevi's killing. Asmar and Koran are suspected of having carried out the killing.