JERUSALEM, 13 July 2005 — Israel will retain security control of the northern West Bank after it evacuates four isolated Jewish settlements in the area next month, Israel Radio said yesterday after a ministerial debate on the issue. The reported decision, certain to disappoint Palestinians, appeared to be a departure from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s withdrawal plan, which says Israel will evacuate “all military installations” in the area and redeploy outside.
Under Sharon’s plan to “disengage” from conflict with the Palestinians, Israel intends to begin evacuating all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and four of 120 in the West Bank beginning in mid-August. Israeli officials said the Defense Ministry had recommended to Sharon’s security Cabinet, which met yesterday, that Israeli forces retain security control of territory around the four West Bank settlements and keep existing military bases in the area.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian suicide bomber killed two people at an Israeli shopping mall and a car bomb blew up in a Jewish settlement yesterday, dealing heavy blows to a shaky five-month-old truce. A unit of Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad claimed the suicide attack on the coastal city of Netanya, a frequent target during a Palestinian uprising. Police said they found the bodies of the bomber and two other people killed by the blast.
The attack occurred less than an hour after the car bomb hit the West Bank settlement of Shave Shomron. Only the driver was hurt and there was no immediate claim of responsibility. In a farewell video, suicide bomber Ahmed Abu Khalil said: “We reiterate our commitment to calm, but we have to retaliate for Israeli violations.”
The Palestinian Authority condemned the latest bombing. “All factions must abide by the truce,” said Jibril Rajoub, a security aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. “These acts only cause harm to Palestinian unity and serve the right wing in Israel.”
In another development, a poisoning claim by the head of the ruling Fatah faction has strengthened a widely held belief among Palestinians that Yasser Arafat’s death eight months ago was due to foul play.
Farouk Qaddumi became the most senior Palestinian figure to endorse the poisoning theory when he told reporters in Tunis on Monday: “I can categorically confirm that Abu Ammar (Arafat) was poisoned.
“The poison was administered in the food and in the medication he swallowed,” said the Tunis-based Qaddumi, who was appointed Fatah chief after Arafat died but refuses to visit the occupied Palestinian territories.
His comments are a variation of a theory put forward by Arafat’s former Cabinet secretary, Ahmed Abdelrahman, who has said the Palestinian leader was poisoned more than a year before his death on Nov. 11 at the Percy military hospital on the outskirts of Paris.
