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Pnc Set to Meet April 22; Israel Bars Former Hijacker

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The Palestine National Council will meet next week in the Gaza Strip to address changing its charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel.

Meanwhile, council member Leila Khaled, a Palestinian terrorist known for her involvement in the 1969 hijacking of a TWA airliner, has been barred by Israel from entering the West Bank.

Khaled had received permission to attend the PNC meeting on April 22.

But Israeli officials said she was refused entry Sunday at the Allenby Bridge crossing from Jordan because they were not informed in advance of her arrival.

Israel has demanded that PNC members sign a pledge denouncing terror and expressing support for the peace process as a precondition for obtaining permission to enter the territories.

Israeli officials say that some 250 of the PNC members who live outside the Gaza Strip and West Bank have already received entry permits and about 200 have already arrived for the meeting.

Khaled, an opponent of the accords, had promised to vote against any change in the charter.

Khaled was captured in London in 1970 while trying to hijack an El Al plane. She was later exchanged for hostages taken in other hijackings.

She spent most of the subsequent years in Beirut and Damascus, but has been in the Jordanian capital of Amman since 1993.

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