Israel to Partially Ease Bethlehem Closure

27/08/2002| IslamWeb

The Israeli occupation army said on Tuesday it would relax restrictions on some Palestinians entering Israel from Bethlehem after "relative quiet" took hold in the West Bank city under a new security plan. The United States urged the Israelis and Palestinians to renew efforts to revive the stalled Gaza-Bethlehem plan, which has been seen as a test case for a wider truce in the 23-month Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.

Palestinians have called for the plan, which was agreed last week, to be implemented in the Gaza Strip and hope moves to end curfews and closures are applied in other West Bank cities, where Israel sent troops in June after resistance attacks.

Under the plan, Israel ended military operations in Bethlehem last Tuesday but kept its troops on the outskirts, underscoring the fragility of the deal under which Palestinian police were deployed in the city to ensure calm.

"In light of the relative quiet in Bethlehem...it has been decided...to ease conditions for the Palestinian population," the occupation army statement said.

It said the occupation army would allow more workers, education and religious representatives, commodities and merchants with permits to enter Israel. It gave no date or further details.

More than 150,000 Palestinians live in Bethlehem and the adjacent towns of Beit Jala and Beit Sahour. Some of them dart through olive groves and over surrounding hills to evade occupation army checkpoints and try to reach jobs in Jerusalem.

RAIDS CONTINUE AND PLAN STALLS

Citing what it called intelligence warnings of resistance attacks, Israeli forces resumed raids in the West Bank at the weekend amid an apparent stalemate over how to broaden the plan.

Israel has not carried out its pledge to ease military closures in the Gaza Strip amid new violence there and an agreement for a withdrawal from Hebron foundered at the weekend.

"We continue to urge both sides to continue to move down that road that they started with," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told a briefing in Washington.

He said Palestinian security forces must take over "so that they can prevent the recurrence of violence and terror."

An Israeli military source said on Tuesday that the Israeli commander of a brigade in the Gaza Strip held talks in a "good spirit" with Palestinian counterparts on Monday on how to improve security and "the quality of life of the Palestinians."

Palestinian security officials said on Tuesday they saw no easing of occupation army restrictions on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Israel has also been concerned over the role of its Arab citizens in the uprising which flared after peace moves stalled. At least 1,510 Palestinians and 589 Israelis have been killed in the violence since the start of the revolt in September, 2000.

Israeli forces said on Monday they arrested seven Israeli Arabs accused of helping a Palestinian resistance bomber blow up a bus in northern Israel three weeks ago, killing nine people.

Israel's one million Arab citizens tread a thin line between loyalty to the Jewish state and sympathy for the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation. Many complain of entrenched discrimination in Israel but limit protest to political means.

MILITANT ARRESTED

The occupation army on Monday also arrested Jamal Abdel Salam Abu el-Heijah, leader of Hamas in the Jenin region, who tops Israel's list of wanted militants in the northern West Bank.

Israeli security sources said he was behind three resistance bombings that killed 39 people in Israel. Several other suspected militants were also arrested in the raid.

Britain's chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, was quoted on Tuesday as saying that Israel had adopted a stance incompatible with the deepest ideals of Judaism.

"I regard the current situation as nothing less than tragic," he said in an interview with the Guardian newspaper. "It is forcing Israel into postures that are incompatible in the long run with our deepest ideals."

PHOTO CAPTION

Wissam Abassi, 25, waits for the first hearing of his case at the Magistrates Court in Jerusalem Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2002. He is accused of belonging to a 15-member cell run by the Islamic militant group Hamas based in east Jerusalem that is believed to be reponsible for several attacks in Jerusalem, including the bombing at the the Hebrew university last July 31 and a suicide bombing at a Jerusalem cafe that killed 11 Israelis. (AP Photo/Enric