GAZA CITY, 23 July 2004 — The European Union yesterday put pressure on Yasser Arafat to implement political reforms as the United Nations announced plans to evacuate non-essential foreign staff from the Gaza Strip because of the deteriorating security situation.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana suggested that the European Union may rethink policy toward President Arafat and his Palestinian Authority if the Palestinian prime minister leaves office.
Premier Ahmed Qorei submitted his resignation on Saturday after unrest in Gaza and frustrated at his lack of power to reform security forces or fight corruption. Arafat rejected the resignation, but Qorei is still threatening to quit.
“If that happens we will have to rethink a lot of things,” Solana told a news conference in Tel Aviv when asked whether the EU would change its support for Arafat if Qorei left office.
When asked whether he had been referring to Arafat in his comment, Solana told reporters “that and a lot of things.”
An EU official said later Solana could also have been talking about the Palestinian Authority in more general terms.
Israel and the United States shun Arafat, accusing him of fomenting Palestinian attacks against Israelis, an accusation he denies. But EU leaders have continued contacts with Arafat.
Solana was speaking after talks with Israeli Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom.
The UN move to evacuate staff followed a decision to move Gaza up to security level “Phase Four” — one step below the maximum “Phase Five”, which requires all international staff to leave.
Unrest between Palestinian rivals surged in Gaza at the weekend and four foreign aid workers were briefly kidnapped, but the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said the main concern was that staff could be caught in crossfire with Israeli troops.
“We have had six incidents in recent weeks where Israeli armored vehicles have fired at or very close to UNRWA cars or convoys,” said Peter Hansen, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency.
“That is the primary reason for us to take these measures.”
The agency said Tuesday it was pulling out 20 staff who regularly have to cross into Israel. It said it feared they could be caught in exchanges of fire near the border.
In Amman, a Palestinian lawmaker who was shot five times in the leg in inter-Palestinian violence in the West Bank vowed from his hospital bed to continue calling for reform in the Palestinian territories.
“What had happened was for the benefit of the enemies of Palestine,” Nabil Amr said, refusing to lay blame for his shooting on any of the rival Palestinian factions.
Amr, a former Cabinet minister and outspoken critic of Arafat’s management of the Palestinian Authority, was wounded by an unidentified gunman late Tuesday at his residence in Ramallah. He was transferred on Wednesday to the Jordanian capital for surgery. Amr told reporters he has always been a campaigner for reforms
— Additional input from agencies
