GAZA CITY, 16 January 2006 — Israel gave its approval yesterday for Arab residents of East Jerusalem to vote in this month’s Palestinian election but followed up a ban on campaigning by Hamas by detaining four of its candidates.

Israel’s attorney general directed Ehud Olmert to continue serving as acting prime minister, and doctors performed a tracheotomy on Ariel Sharon, who has been unconscious since suffering a devastating stroke 11 days ago.

Also yesterday, Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian mother and her son in what appeared to be a mix-up sparked by a village feud, residents said.

A total of 10 Hamas members were held by the Israeli police in Jerusalem after they made good on their vow to defy the ban on campaigning.

The Palestinian leadership, whose ruling Fatah faction is facing a tight race with Hamas in the poll, also slammed the uneven playing field being imposed by Israel and urged it allow electioneering to take place unhindered.

Olmert formally submitted the proposals to Cabinet colleagues at only their second regular meeting since Sharon suffered the stroke.

“I propose to the Cabinet that the election in East Jerusalem be conducted on the same basis as in 1996 and 2005,” Olmert told the meeting, in comments carried on Israeli radio.

Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, occupied and then annexed by Israel in 1967, were able to vote in the last parliamentary elections a decade ago and in last January’s presidential election in post offices.

However Olmert said Israel would not allow Hamas to campaign in occupied East Jerusalem, which Israel considers part of its “undivided eternal” capital, a position not recognized by the international community.

“Under no circumstances will we permit Hamas to enter Jerusalem and carry out electioneering,” he said.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat hit out at the decision, saying it was contrary to past arrangements in which all candidates had been allowed to campaign.

“Israel has no right to forbid any candidate from campaigning in East Jerusalem,” Erekat told AFP. “We have asked the international observers to ensure that the campaign will take place on the same lines as in 1996 and 2005 which allowed for the candidates from every list to move freely. This includes Hamas.”

However, Israel demonstrated its determination to stick to its word when police picked up six Hamas activists in Jerusalem’s Old City, while another four were detained when police raided the movement’s Jerusalem campaign headquarters and closed it down.

Jerusalem police spokesman Shmulik Ben Ruby told AFP the office was “the center of Hamas’ activity in East Jerusalem, which had all the money and the power to run Hamas’ election campaign.”

Among the four candidates detained in the Old City was Sheikh Mohammed Abu Tir, who is No. 2 on the Hamas slate.

Israel’s outgoing Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, whose right-wing Likud party quit the Cabinet over the issue, said there was no way the government could stop Hamas.

“Nobody will be able to stop Hamas militants campaigning and going around from mosque to mosque,” he said. Israel had initially threatened to block all voting in East Jerusalem over the participation of Hamas.

In an interview with Israel’s Haaretz daily, Abu Tir said the movement had made a “strategic shift” with its decision to field candidates for the first time and said it might even condone future talks with Israel.

“We are not saying ‘never’,” said Abu Tir, a onetime Hamas military commander who was only freed from jail in Israel last year.

“The question of negotiations will be presented to the new Parliament and, as with every issue, when we reach the Parliament it will be discussed and decided in a rational manner.”

— With input from agencies