WORLD AFFAIRS

Stand-off in Jerusalem

Palestinian leaders abandon the 'Gaza-Bethlehem First' talks aimed at easing pressure on its population after Israeli tank fire kills four of a Bedouin family.

VIKRAM SURA
in Jerusalem

AN agreement to ease restrictions on the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and to test the Palestinian Authority's resolve to check terror actions against Israel was overwhelmed when Israeli tank fire killed four of a fruit-picker's family in Gaza on August 30.

SUHAIB SALEM/ REUTERS
The body of a youth killed in an Israeli tank attack in Gaza.

The unwritten agreement, called the "Gaza-Bethlehem First", was being negotiated between Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer and Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razzak Al-Yahya. On August 20, Israeli forces rolled out from the West Bank town of Bethlehem, though the quarter kilometre-long checkpoint into the city remained intact. Withdrawal from select military look-out posts in Gaza was, however, kept on hold until the end of September, when the Jewish holiday season ends.

The deaths in Gaza took place even as the possibility of Israeli withdrawal from Hebron was on the Palestinian agenda. In a pre-dawn incident, an Israeli battle tank protecting the Jewish settlement of Netzarim, fired at the family resting in the fig and grape orchard some 100 metres away, apparently believing them to be suspicious figures, an army inquiry ordered by Ben Eliezer revealed.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) confirmed that a couple of thousand tiny, sharp, darts sprayed from the bursting tank shells sliced to death the Bedouin family of four: a mother, her two sons and their cousin. The dead were identified as Ruwaida al-Hajeen, 55; her sons, Ashraf, 22, and Nihad, 19, and the cousin, Muhammad, 18. Eight others, including four-year-old Said al-Hajeen, were also reported injured.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in a statement called the incident "an unforgivable crime that is aimed to delay peace efforts", and that it showed "the real intentions of those who give these orders". Punctuating a three-week silence, a Hamas leader in Gaza warned that "when there are killings of Palestinian civilians, Israel can expect killings of its civilians". The night before, along the Gaza coast, Israeli naval speedboats, helicopters and tanks searched for arms when floating barrels aroused suspicion; they contained refrigerators.

In a statement by the Defence Ministry, Ben Eliezer expressed his "sorrow over the event in which innocent Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip as a result of firing by the IDF", while a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority said in Ramallah that talks the same day on Israeli redeployment in Gaza and Bethlehem would go on. But, hours later, the Palestinians reneged on the announcement. It was the turn of the Palestinians, as Ben Eliezer had cancelled a meeting the day before citing a mortar attack on a Jewish settlement in southern Gaza.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon kept his distance from the talks and called the Bethlehem withdrawal akin to "moving a few jeeps". In Israel's national unity government, without a strong opposition, Ministers who are also party leaders often take their own initiatives to the Palestinians. Ben Eliezer belongs to the Labour Party while Ariel Sharon to the Likud.

Israeli and Palestinian commentators note that the challenge to Ben Eliezer within his party from Amram Mitzna, the dovish Mayor of the northern port city of Haifa, made the Defence Minister sit with the Palestinians to secure his own political future. In a recent interview, Mitzna said that he was "telling people to take the masks off of the politicians who are not telling them the truth. There is a connection between Israel's status today and our occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. I'm telling people they are getting lies when they are told that the only way to solve the problem with the Palestinians is by using military power."

At present, Ben Eliezer is chairman of the Labour Party but will contest to retain it in party elections on November 19. The party chairman becomes the automatic Labour choice for Prime Minister when general elections are held by October 2003.

On the Palestinian side, Hamas did not join the talks, and, in the backdrop of the Gaza incident, announced that it opposed them. Its leader in Gaza, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, said that "these talks look as if it's just an umbrella to cover the massacre of Israeli aggression and give a chance for Sharon to kill Palestinians." He added that the Palestinian Authority cancelled the meeting on August 30 for popularity's sake. "I believe that Palestinians will not accept these talks," Rantisi said. "It's important to those killed just a few hours before the meeting. The Palestinian Authority will lose their popularity." The Gaza-Bethlehem talks have also been criticised by the Aqsa Martyr's Brigades of Arafat's Al Fatah movement.

The relative lull in the last three weeks without bombings, suicide or otherwise, within Israel led to the speculation that the Palestinian Authority had reached an agreement with the Islamist groups. "No," said Rantisi, and repeated his loaded mantra, "The military wing [of Hamas] will decide if there is any retaliation." Hamas was negotiating with the Authority before the Gaza deaths, he said, but did not arrive at a consensus on operations inside Israel.

He said: "Before the Israeli massacre in Gaza there were some meetings. We discussed lots of things; one of things from the Palestinian Authority was the issue of operations inside Israel. We said as long as there is military occupation we have no choice."

The Israelis did not appear perturbed over the cancellation of the talks, but for the Palestinian Authority it meant not only mollifying the Palestinian people but also ensuring that Hamas did not retaliate.

"It doesn't look beautiful to have a meeting after the killing," said Brigadier-General Osama Al-Ali of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza.

"The activity of Hamas on the ground is something, while they talk something else," Al-Ali said. "Why are they against the Gaza and Bethlehem talks? If the Israelis are promising something, let's wait and see. But why say no from the beginning? The world will not understand if I speak like Rantisi. He fights before the results are out," the Brigadier-General said.

Had the Gaza-Bethlehem understanding been allowed to progress by both the Israelis and the Palestinians, all West Bank cities and the Gaza Strip would have eventually seen some freedom of movement. But in Jerusalem and Ramallah, the leaders are in a standoff.