Israel is to lift roadblocks around some West Bank cities to permit freer movement and will take other steps to ease controls on Palestinians as both sides seek to build on the newly announced ceasefire.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, said Israel had agreed to remove big roadblocks as the military handed over security responsibility for five West Bank communities during the next three weeks, beginning with Jericho.
Easing the restrictions on movement would provide tangible relief from one of the most bitterly resented impositions of the occupation.
Many Palestinians view the checkpoints as a form of collective punishment and general harassment by the army because people sometimes wait for hours to cross. Men under the age of 35 are often forbidden to pass at all and families are separated by the difficulty of moving between towns.
Human rights groups regularly report abuses and humiliation of Palestinians by soldiers at the checkpoints.
Dov Weisglass, the chief political aide to Ariel Sharon, Israel’s Prime Minister, is expected to meet Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, on Thursday to discuss further confidence-building measures. These include the mechanism for releasing 900 prisoners, and pulling back from the five West Bank towns.
Shaul Mofaz, Israel’s Defence Minister, announced on Wednesday that 1 000 Palestinian workers from the Gaza Strip would again be allowed to enter Israel each day to work. The number is a fraction of those who used to have permits.
Sharon’s office said a second summit with Abbas could be held as early as next week at the prime minister’s ranch in the Negev.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they were waiting to meet Abbas before deciding whether to commit to the ceasefire. Although some Hamas figures said the organisation was not bound by this week’s announcement, Palestinian officials noted that Hamas had respected an interim truce. They added that Abbas — in winning a public commitment from Sharon to end military operations against the Palestinians — had met the principal demand by Hamas and Islamic Jihad for abandoning their war on Israel.
”We’re going to listen to Mr Abbas when he returns,” said Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesperson in Gaza City.
”We are going to sit down with him, and then we’re going to declare our position.”
But some violence continues. Palestinian security officials said a Jewish settler had shot and seriously wounded a Palestinian man as he walked near Atzmona settlement in southern Gaza on Wednesday.
In nearby Khan Yunis refugee camp, the body of a Hamas activist was found with his arms blown off and burns over his face. Palestinian officials said it appeared he was killed while building a bomb.
Sharon came under renewed domestic political pressure on Wednesday after his Foreign Minister, Silvan Shalom, said he would spearhead a campaign for a national referendum on the plan to pull all Jewish settlers and most troops out of Gaza.
Although opinion polls show Israeli voters in favour of the withdrawal, opponents of the move have been pressing for a plebiscite in the hope of delaying the pullout by months and perhaps blocking it altogether.
”I mean to do this in the public, parliamentary and party forums,” Shalom told Israeli television. ”The only thing that is motivating me is to prevent a split among our people. There is going to be a split and I want to avoid it.”
But Sharon said: ”There will not be a referendum. The pressure to carry out a referendum is due to threats of civil war. Whoever thinks one can run a country under threat is simply wrong.”
The ruling Likud party is divided on removing the settlers, and many of its MPs are openly defying the prime minister by threatening to block the budget unless their demand for a referendum is met. – Guardian Unlimited Â