JERUSALEM, 5 September 2005 — Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said yesterday that Israel would accelerate construction of its controversial West Bank barrier to fend off an increased risk of Palestinian attacks.
Mofaz told a weekly Cabinet meeting he had issued instructions for work to be speeded up after intelligence indicated that Palestinian militants in the West Bank were planning more attacks.
The government has been heavily criticized in the aftermath of a suicide attack last Sunday in the southern Israeli city of Beersheva, which was carried out by a Palestinian from the southern West Bank where much of the work on the barrier has yet to be completed.
The security establishment has previously warned that militants in the West Bank were likely to increase their activity after the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Israel insists that the massive barrier is vital to prevent attacks on its soil by would-be Palestinian attackers.
In another development, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday the Israelis and Palestinians were close to an agreement on border checks for civilians and trade crossing into the Gaza Strip from Egypt.
After talks with James Wolfensohn, the former World Bank chief who has been mediating over the economic aspects of Israel’s pullout from Gaza, Abbas said he was hopeful an agreement on one of the most contentious of the issues dividing the two sides would be resolved “very soon”.
“There is an idea which we will present to the Israeli side. We hope to reach an acceptable solution for us and them,” Abbas told reporters.
Israel has said it is willing to let Palestinian civilians leave through the existing Rafah crossing but it wants all goods and civilians entering the Gaza Strip to pass through an Israeli-controlled border post near Kerem Shalom kibbutz where the Israeli, Egyptian and Palestinian territories converge.
Meanwhile, an Israeli security court convicted a Palestinian lawmaker yesterday of complicity in militant attacks on Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank. An Israeli army spokeswoman said that Husam Khader, a member of the dominant Palestinian faction Fatah arrested in 2003, had confessed to three terrorism charges as part of a plea bargain.
