OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 6 December 2002 — Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has approved plans that would seal off northern Israel from the West Bank by extending a security fence to defend against attacks, government officials said yesterday.
The fence is expected to cut into West Bank territory in some areas, shielding Jewish settlements built on land Israel has occupied since the 1967 Middle East war.
Sharon, speaking at a press conference separately, said members of Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network are currently in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
“We have recently received information according to which a few Al-Qaeda members have infiltrated the Gaza Strip and that others are in Lebanon, where they are collaborating closely with Hezbollah,” Sharon said.
“There is no doubt that Israel is one of Al-Qaeda’s targets but we are taking the appropriate measures to guarantee security by carrying out many arrests, which lead to more arrests,” he added.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat dismissed the accusations as “nonsense.”
Speaking about the fence, a Defense Ministry official said the new 42-km barrier would be built in northern Israel from Megiddo Junction and eastward, past the Gilboa mountains, to the town of Beit Shean.
“There was a decision in principle to continue the northern section of the fence. Now they must find the budget resources for it. The track (for the fence) has been agreed on,” said Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Sharon.
The fence has drawn criticism from both right-wing Israelis, who say it is a de facto border shutting out Jewish settlements in the West Bank from the country proper, and Palestinians, who say it is an excuse for Israel to expropriate more of their lands.
The entire $220 million fence project is expected to cover 350 km, roughly along the lines of the West Bank border before Israel captured the territory in 1967. Work on the first 110-km section began in June.
Making clear the fence could in places take over private Palestinian and Israeli-owned property, Mashiah said: “We are trying to build it on state lands to shorten the process but we can’t do so in every place.”
Meanwhile, Israel pressed on with military raids during the night. The army said it arrested 16 people in the West Bank and five in the Gaza Strip.
Tanks rolled into the southern outskirts of Gaza City where troops demolished the home of Bader Hassan, a member of the Hamas group.
The raids followed a missile strike on Wednesday in which Israeli forces killed an alleged bomb maker in Gaza City.
Sharon said on Wednesday he accepted in principle US President George W. Bush’s outline for peace and vowed to seek approval for it by his government after a Jan. 28 election his Likud party is expected to win.
Sharon said he would be open to the creation of an “interim” state only after there is “an absolute end to terror” and a new Palestinian leadership to replace President Yasser Arafat.
Such a state would cover areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip already given over to full or partial Palestinian control, but Israel would hold on to “essential security areas”.
The Palestinians want to establish a state on all of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as East Jerusalem
A definitive Palestinian state would be negotiated later, Sharon said.
But Sharon rejected the timetable in the US proposal which calls for a Palestinian state by 2005. “Implementation on the ground, not a calendar timetable, will be the determining factor,” he said.
Palestinian leaders rejected his terms, saying their state must be based on the borders before Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip. “Sharon’s offer is not serious. It is part of his election campaign,” said Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rudeina. Israeli Labor party leader Amram Mitzna charged yesterday that Sharon’s proposal for a Palestinian state was only an attempt to win votes for the upcoming general election. (The Independent)
