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Israel, Palestinians deadlock on handover
Israeli and Palestinian commanders met Sunday to work out the last details of a handover of the West Bank town of Tulkarem to Palestinian control, but the session ended without agreement, a new hitch for fledgling peace efforts.
Earlier, Israel's defense minister said the handover would take place Monday, making it the second of five West Bank towns to be transferred to Palestinian control. Palestinian officials said the two sides would reconvene Monday.
As with the earlier handover of Jericho, the main issues concerned control over surrounding territory and removal of Israeli roadblocks.
The handovers were part of a truce announced at a summit last month in Egypt by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and reinforced last week at a meeting of Palestinian factions in Cairo.
Palestinians opened fire on Israeli police and soldiers searching for stolen cars in the Amari refugee camp next to the West Bank city of Ramallah, the military said, wounding two, one critically.
Several hours later, a Palestinian man was shot and critically wounded by an Israeli border policeman in the West Bank town of Bethlehem. Border Police spokesman Oren Goanias said the Palestinian tried to steal a weapon from a border policeman.
The violence threatened to upset last week's truce declaration by Palestinian militants. The militants pledged to halt attacks on Israel for the rest of the year — an important boost for Abbas as he tries to resume peace talks.
But Hamas and Islamic Jihad conditioned their support on Israel's stopping all military operations against the Palestinians. Israel has promised to honor the truce if quiet continues.
Despite the incidents, talks about the handover of Tulkarem proceeded. Last week Israel turned over the isolated desert oasis of Jericho to the Palestinians, the first of five towns to revert to Palestinian control under the Feb. 8 summit understandings.
"We handed Jericho over last week and tomorrow it is expected that Tulkarem will be transferred to Palestinian responsibility," said Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz. He said plans were underway to transfer a third town, Qalqiliya.
Tulkarem is on the line between the West Bank and Israel opposite Israel's narrowest section — nine miles from Israel's coast on the Mediterranean Sea. Before Israel erected a section of its contentious separation barrier around three sides of the town, several suicide bombers infiltrated into the nearby Israeli city of Netanya and blew themselves up, killing dozens.
On Feb. 25 a suicide bomber from the Tulkarem area exploded in Tel Aviv, killing five Israelis, in the most serious breach of the truce.
Palestinians want control of all seven roads leading into Tulkarem, a regional market hub, officials said before the Sunday security meeting. However, Israel was balking about two of the roads, officials on both sides said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Israeli officials said the two roads lead to towns where those involved in the Tel Aviv bombing came from.
Similar disputes held up the Jericho handover for several days.
In another development, Israel Radio reported late Sunday that Mofaz approved construction of 3,500 housing units in and around the West Bank's largest settlement, Maale Adumim, east of Jerusalem.
Defense officials said they were aware of the plan but could not confirm that Mofaz had signed it.
Also Sunday, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that aerial photos taken for the Defense Ministry show considerable construction in three veteran Israeli settlements in the West Bank, violating Israel's commitment to stop such building under terms of the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan. The report said Mofaz ordered the photographs at the request of former chief state prosecutor Talia Sasson, who recently completed a report on unauthorized Jewish settlement outposts in the West Bank. A Defense Ministry spokeswoman confirmed the ministry is seeking to expand its knowledge of settlement construction in the West Bank. Sasson's report said Israeli governments have helped build and expand 105 illegal West Bank settlement outposts in a flagrant violation of official policy and promises to the United States — confirming long-standing complaints by the Palestinians. A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv said the United States expected Israel to abide by its road map commitments. Meanwhile, Israeli settlers protested bitterly after Sharon's security detail barred young opponents of his Gaza pullout plan from a public event Sharon attended in the Red Sea resort of Eilat, then extended the ban to all young men wearing the skullcap of the observant Jew, citing security concerns. The settlers' hardline ideological leadership is predominantly religious and has vowed to disrupt Sharon's pullout plan. Security chiefs have warned that some of the most extreme could be plotting to assassinate the prime minister. In 1995 a religious-nationalist Jew shot dead Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to stop the handover of land in Israeli-Palestinian peace deals. |
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![Palestinian police officer Zohair Abu Fateh arrives at the District Coordination Office in the West Bank town of Tulkarem for a meeting with Israeli officials Sunday, March 20, 2005. Israeli and Palestinian commanders met Sunday evening to work out the last details of a handover of Tulkarem, the second of five towns to be transferred to Palestinian control, but the session ended without agreement, a new hitch for fledgling peace efforts between the two sides. [AP]](xin_480302210912736134793.jpg)
