The Israeli team meeting over the weekend in Tunis with Yasser Arafat received instructions to tell the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization that Israel is ready to set up a municipal Palestinian police force in Hebron, according to reports here.
Israel is also reportedly ready to weigh the establishment of a Palestinian police presence in other West Bank cities and to accept the temporary presence of unarmed international observers there.
Efforts will be made to recruit the police force from among Palestinians who served in such West Bank units before their mass resignations at the start of the intifada, or Palestinian uprising, in December 1987.
The units, if established, will be under the control of the Israeli authorities.
The team’s mission is part of an ongoing effort to restart negotiations with the PLO, which suspended the talks after the Feb. 25 killings of at least 29 Palestinians worshipers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.
The Israeli team, which met with Arafat on Sunday night, discussed the PLO’s demands for measures to guarantee the safety of Palestinians in the territories.
The team will reportedly tell PLO officials that Israel is ready to consider new arrangements for prayers by Jews and Arabs at the Tomb of Patriarchs in an effort to minimize friction between the two groups.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
