Israeli security forces have gone on full alert in the administered territories in an effort to prevent any further violence aimed at undermining the implementation of the Palestinian self-rule accord.
The stepped-up security measures were taken as violence, protests and strikes continue to take place throughout Israel and the territories.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian rejectionist groups have pledged to step up their attacks to try to destroy support for the accord, which had been scheduled to begin on Monday.
Jewish settlers in the territories, fearing for their security once the accord goes into effect and reeling from the recent murders of settlers by militant Palestinians, have been responsible for a series of violent retaliatory attacks on Palestinians.
As a result, the violence from both sides has threatened to overwhelm the tentative steps Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization have been taking toward peace.
ATTACK OCCURS DESPITE MILITARY PRESENCE
There was a wave of violent attacks over the weekend against both Arabs and Jews as well as continuing demonstrations, both for and against the accord.
Three Palestinians were shot and killed near the West Bank town of Hebron, and police believe that Jewish extremists were responsible.
The attack occurred despite an Israeli military presence in the territories that stands at its highest levels since the start of the Palestinian uprising, or intifada, in December 1987.
On Dec. 8, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin announced that there were upwards of 14,000 troops in the territories — almost four times as many forces as Israel has stationed in the area encompassing the southern Lebanon security zone and Israeli-Lebanese border.
In Cairo on Sunday, Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat acknowledged that they could not meet Monday’s deadline for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho.
Palestinian leader Faisal Husseini warned that the Dec. 13 deadline for the start of Israeli withdrawals should not be permitted to pass without a concrete development “on the ground” to mark it.
Only this, he said, would prove to both Israelis and Palestinians that the peace process should continue.
More than 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners were expected to be released on Monday as an Israeli gesture of commitment to the accord. Most of the prisoners are members of the PLO’s mainstream Fatah wing who were convicted of minor offenses.
The accord is likely to begin only with such symbolic gestures because Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have not yet reached agreement on three major issues: the size of the Jericho area to fall under Palestinian self-rule; who will control border crossings between Gaza and Egypt and between Jericho and Jordan; and how to handle security arrangements for settlers living in Gaza.
Rabin, addressing the Cabinet at its regular Sunday meeting, said Israel will insist on retaining control of the border crossings points but may yield on the size of the autonomous area in Jericho.
Rabin also said he believes agreement can be reached with the Palestinians on Gush Katif, a bloc of settlements in Gaza. Israel wants to maintain territorial continuity between the settlements and Israel proper, while the Palestinians have been demanding control of the land falling in between.
On Sunday, a group of Knesset members from the opposition Likud and National Religious Party held a sit-down demonstration at the entrance to the Prime Minister’s Office here.
Likud Knesset member Limor Livnat told Israel Radio she was deeply worried about the prospect of an armed Palestinian police force, which is scheduled to assume authority in the territories when the Israeli troop withdrawals begin.
“This is a strike to tell Prime Minister Rabin, ‘don’t give them guns (with which) they can kill us’ ” she said.
“We thought we should come here and ask him, tell him, shout, scream, cry: Don’t give them guns.”
The three Palestinians who were shot and killed in the Hebron area over the weekend were all members of one family. The dead were Sa’adi and Mohammed Fataftah, who were brothers, and their cousin, Ishaq Fataftah. All were in their 20s.
The militantly anti-Arab Kach organization claimed responsibility for the murders, calling them an act of revenge for the killings last week of Mordechai Lapid and his son, Shalom. Those killings, too, occurred near Hebron.
The Council of Jewish Settlements in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, a settlers organization opposed to the self-rule accord, condemned the murders of the three Palestinians.
In another violent weekend incident, three members of Fatah stabbed a settler, Zvi Fixler, in a greenhouse in Gaza. The three had worked for Fixler and reportedly had been assigned by Fatah to kill their employer as part of an initiation rite.
The father of one of the assailants, defending Fixler during the attack, was himself stabbed during the incident.
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