Israel Lifts Internal Closure; Arafat Warns of Possible ‘disaster’

Israel has lifted most of the travel restrictions it imposed on Palestinians traveling within the self-rule areas, but Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat rejected the gestures, warning that continued Israeli sanctions could lead to “disaster.”

On Thursday, Israeli officials lifted an “internal closure” on the West Bank town of Ramallah and the Palestinian-controlled areas of Hebron.

The move left Bethlehem as the sole self-rule area still facing travel restrictions that Israel imposed after a July 30 suicide twin bombing in Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market. The attack killed 14 Israelis and left more than 170 others wounded.

But Israel did not lift the general closure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which prevents tens of thousands of Palestinians from working within Israel.

Arafat, meeting in Ramallah with Jewish and Arab members of the left-wing Hadash Party, rejected the Israeli gesture.

“They are letting a few people move from one home to the other, but they are not letting cement, steel and vegetables pass through. They are not allowing any economic life,” he said.

Israel has imposed general and internal closures after previous suicide attacks on Israeli targets. But the latest attack prompted a new sanction, the withholding of tax revenues that Israel regularly paid to the Palestinian Authority.

Arafat claimed Thursday that Israel was withholding some $40 million dollars in such revenues, adding that this had prevented some 100,000 Palestinian workers from being paid.

He said that the closure prevented 60,000 Palestinians from working in Israel and also blocked the earnings of an additional 60,000 who depended for their living on those Palestinians who work in Israel.

“You have 220,000 Palestinians who are not being paid, who are not able to bring food to their families,” Arafat said.

“What would happen if we had hunger and starvation?” he added. “What will be the results everywhere? Disaster.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that Israel would lift all the sanctions once the Palestinian Authority proves it is clamping down on terrorism, especially by making mass arrests.

The Palestinians have refused to carry out arrests, maintaining that the bombers in the attack came from abroad.

“Why are you holding me and my people responsible for this? This is revenge for something we are not responsible for.” Arafat said.

He spoke a day after U.S. Special Middle East Coordinator Dennis Ross left the region after a four-day shuttle mission aimed at getting the two sides to resume security cooperation.

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, as well as nearly all security cooperation, came to a halt after Israel began construction in mid-March of the Jewish neighborhood of Har Homa in southeastern Jerusalem.

After a meeting Thursday in the West Bank town of Nablus with Labor Party Knesset member Yossi Beilin, Arafat said he was not very optimistic following Ross’ visit.

But he said he was looking forward to a pending shuttle mission by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Albright has indicated that her trip to the region would depend on the level of success Ross achieved in his meetings with the two sides.

State Department spokesman James Rubin said Thursday that the exact date of Albright’s trip had still not been decided, adding that it would likely take place in September, rather than later this month, as originally thought.

Rubin said that although Albright’s trip would focus on Israeli-Palestinian relations, she would probably make other regional visits.

“We have broader interests in the region,” he said. “We have national security interests that go beyond Israel and the Palestinian Authority.”