BOOSTING ISRAEL'S DEFENSES : U.S. WILL PROVIDE ANTI-MISSILE AID.

Byline: Philip Shenon The New York Times

The Clinton administration announced Sunday that it would help Israel develop a weapons-defense system to shield the country from ballistic missiles and from the types of small rockets that Lebanese guerrillas have rained down on northern Israel in recent weeks.

Under the agreement reached by Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Defense Secretary William Perry, Israel would be provided with nearly instantaneous information from American satellites if any of its neighbors launched ballistic missiles. Israeli leaders have long sought such an early-warning system.

Perry said that the satellite data, last provided to Israel on a routine basis during the Persian Gulf War, would alert the Israeli military ``in a matter of seconds of any ballistic missile launch that would in any way threaten Israel.

``In the weeks ahead, we'll work out the specifics of how to do that,'' he said.

At a joint news conference at the Pentagon with Perry, Peres said he was ``surprised in a very welcome way'' by the amount of assistance being offered by the United States in responding to the threat to Israel from missiles and rockets.

He said that the defense agreement would strengthen Israel's hand in dealing with Islamic militants who have jeopardized his government's campaign for a comprehensive peace settlement in the Middle East.

``Let's face it, fighting terror means enabling the peace process to go ahead,'' Peres said. The prime minister was scheduled to meet with President Clinton to discuss an American-brokered cease-fire between Israel and the Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.

A Defense Department official said that while Israel had not demanded the weapons-defense systems in accepting the cease-fire, ``the United States and Israel agree that this as a very straightforward way of supporting the cease-fire and the larger peace process, if only by convincing the Israeli public that we are searching for ways to guarantee their safety.''

Sunday's agreement was a recognition of the long-range threat to Israel from ballistic missiles, like the Iraqi Scuds that slammed into Israeli cities during the Gulf War in 1991. Several of Israel's other neighbors in the Middle East, including Iran and Libya, are developing ballistic missile systems that could pose a similar threat.

For Israelis living anywhere near their nation's rubble-strewn border with Lebanon, the more significant element of Sunday's agreement may lie in its proposals for dealing with the immediate threat posed by short-range Katyusha rockets, like those fired into northern Israel by Hezbollah guerrillas over the last several weeks.

Israel cited the rocket attacks in its decision to launch a massive assault this month against Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon - attacks in which at least 160 Lebanese were killed and hundreds of thousands of people were forced to flee their homes. The attacks and counterattacks across the border were terminated this weekend under an American-brokered cease-fire.

As part of Sunday's agreement with Israel, the Defense Department said that it was committed to spending tens of millions of dollars to hasten development of the Nautilus laser weapons system, which is designed to disable short-range rockets like the Katyusha.

The Pentagon said that prototypes of the laser system, which destroys rockets in flight by melting away their metal skins, would be available for testing in Israel by the end of next year.

The Nautilus technology was developed by an American defense contractor, TRW Inc., in the late 1970s but languished in the 1980s as the Defense Department turned its attention to more sophisticated ``Star Wars'' missile defense programs.

Until the Israelis expressed interest in the program as a means of dealing with the Katyushas, the Pentagon, citing strains on its budget, had planned to end funding for Nautilus next year. Under Sunday's agreement, Israel will contribute $20 million of the $70 million development cost for the Nautilus.

Perry said that the Pentagon would attempt to provide Israel with ``an interim capability, a near-term capability of defending against Katyusha rockets until such time as the Nautilus is deployed.'' He said that the Defense Department would dispatch a team of officials to Israel next week to discuss proposals for an anti-rocket system.

A spokesman for Perry, Ken Bacon, said the interim measures could include the deployment of an anti-missile weapon known as the Phalanx, which operates like a machine gun to knock out short-range rockets.

``It basically throws up a wall of lead at a missile coming in and knocks it down before it hits,'' Bacon said. The Phalanx is used on U.S. Navy ships as a last-resort defense against Cruise missiles and hostile aircraft. He said the Pentagon would try to determine if it could be used on land as well.