RAMALLAH, West Bank, 28 August — Israel arrested two political leaders of a Palestinian party yesterday, pressing ahead with its policy of arrests in the West Bank even as Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer prepared to hold fresh security talks with Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razaq Al-Yahya.
The army captured three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in the West Bank city of Ramallah, two of them senior political leaders, Palestinian security sources said.
"This means Israel is continuing its policy of assassination and arrests to weaken the PFLP, because it is the second most important faction in the PLO and because it is a faction which will prevent Israel from implementing its vision of a political and security solution," senior PFLP official Kaid Al-Ghul told reporters.
"It is no coincidence that this happened on the anniversary of the assassination of Abu Ali Mustapha," he said, in reference to the then leader of the secular movement killed in an Israeli helicopter attack last Aug. 27. The PFLP retaliated two months later by assassinating Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi.
Israeli troops combing the West Bank, which they have reoccupied almost entirely since June 19, also rounded up three members of the resistance group Hamas yesterday, as well as another 10 suspected activists in Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron.
Moving to capitalize on a prolonged lull in the 23-month conflict, Yahya said he would meet in Tel Aviv today with Ben-Eliezer to discuss a plan under which Israeli forces would gradually leave reoccupied areas as Palestinian security forces took control of them.
Security commanders discussed the plan in a meeting late Monday, but neither side disclosed any details. Israel has balked at extending the move from the West Bank town of Bethlehem, which it evacuated last week, to Hebron, citing security risks. Continued unrest in Gaza has also stalled a proposed series of withdrawals there.
The plan is opposed both by Palestinian hard-liners, who see it as a threat to them, and by far-right Israeli groups, who believe Israel should hang on to areas they have seized in the past two months.
Among the Israeli opponents are hard-line settler groups, whose communities built on land seized in the 1967 war have been the focus of the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, which has cost more than 2,400 lives.
The Jewish Settlers Council launched a campaign yesterday aimed at convincing the government to "defeat the Palestinians and finish the war."
The settlers’ decision came two days after the Israeli chief of staff, Gen. Moshe Yaalon, said "Palestinian terrorism was spreading like a cancer" and called for tough military action to "defeat the Palestinians."
In a statement, the settlers urged the government to order the army to continue its policy of systematic sweeps across the Palestinians territories for wanted militants.
The settlers also backed the hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s other tough policies, such as deterring future attacks by rounding up suspects’ relatives, demolishing their homes and threatening them with expulsion to the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, Israel reeled from the arrests of seven Israeli Arabs accused of involvement in a bus bombing which killed nine people on Aug. 4. The new arrests came a week after a Hamas cell accused of some of the bloodiest attacks in months was dismantled in east Jerusalem.
The Israeli Army said yesterday 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.
Under the plan agreed last week, Israel ended military operations in Bethlehem a week ago but, underscoring the deal’s fragility, kept its troops on the outskirts while Palestinian police were deployed in the city to ensure calm. Israel has not carried out its pledge to ease military closures in the Gaza Strip.
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 army checkpoints and try to reach jobs in Jerusalem. (The Independent)
