JERUSALEM, 20 August 2007 — Israel denied yesterday it had submitted to Palestinian officials a list of 110 militants whom Israeli forces would stop pursuing in the occupied West Bank. “The report is not true. There is no such list,” Israeli government spokesman David Baker said.
But Palestinian Information Minister Riyad Al-Malki said the Palestinian Authority had received on Saturday a list of 110 Palestinians set to receive amnesty. “We received the list, as I said yesterday,” Malki said. Malki said those on the roster would adhere to the agreement to surrender their weapons and sign documents saying they would not launch attacks on Israel. Israeli officials declined to comment on his remarks on Saturday.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has pledged a series of steps aimed at strengthening Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is in a power struggle with the Islamist group Hamas. Last month, Israel granted amnesty to 178 militants from Abbas’ secular Fatah faction and released 250 Palestinian prisoners, mostly Abbas loyalists.
Israeli Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, who was in favor of the earlier overtures to Abbas, said yesterday that Israel should avoid “adventurous concessions” to the Palestinians. Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June after routing Abbas’ security forces, leading the Palestinian president to set up a Western-backed government in the West Bank.
Israel also said yesterday it would turn away refugees from Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region but allow some 500 already in the country to remain, enforcing a policy aimed at halting illegal African migration via Egypt. Responding to a persistent flow of illegal migrants through its porous border with its southern neighbor, Israel handed over 48 Sudanese to authorities in Egypt late on Saturday, Egyptian security officials said.
Baker put the number at 50 and said it was Israel’s policy “that anyone entering illegally from Egypt will be returned to Egypt.” Baker noted the Israeli government had agreed to allow 500 refugees from Darfur already in Israel “to remain for humanitarian reasons.”
Asked what would happen from now on if a Darfur refugee was caught by Israel at the frontier, he said: “He would be returned to Egypt.” Israel considers Sudanese refugees to be enemy nationals, partly because of Khartoum’s hostility toward the Jewish state, and several dozen have been put in jail awaiting word of their fate.
International experts estimate 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes in Darfur since non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing the Sudanese government in Khartoum of marginalizing the region.
Human rights groups say more than 2,000 illegal migrants from Africa have sneaked into Israel from Egypt over the past year seeking a better life. Eastern European prostitutes and drugs are also smuggled into Israel through the frontier.
Egypt has stepped up efforts to stop human trafficking on the border with Israel, a source of tension between the two countries. Egyptian police shot at a group of African migrants trying to sneak into Israel in July, killing one woman and wounding four, including a child.
