Israel and the Palestinians appeared on Monday on the verge of a crucial deal to open up Gaza’s border with Egypt after a new round of intensive talks with United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Rice flew in on Sunday hoping to inject momentum into a peace process that has largely stalled since Israel’s historic pull-out from the Gaza Strip two months ago, once billed as a milestone.
Neither party to the conflict showed any sign of giving ground or toning down their rhetoric, and Rice’s visit was shadowed by the killing of a top Islamic militant by Israeli troops.
But a deal to reopen the Rafah crossing, a key transit point between Gaza and Egypt, hung tantalisingly in the balance after the chief US diplomat spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
”We are on the verge of reaching an agreement on this issue,” Abbas told a joint news conference with Rice after talks in the West Bank town of Ramallah. ”The agreement is close. It will be implemented soon.”
But Rice herself was more circumspect.
”I’m never going to predict precisely when this is going to come to a conclusion,” she said. ”But I do think they have made a lot of progress.”
US officials had been counting on a breakthrough on the Rafah crossing as a main deliverable of Rice’s fourth trip to the region this year and her first since Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza.
”We want to work very hard to make certain the benefits of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza are fully felt by the Palestinian people,” Rice told the Ramallah news conference. ”That means that we need to work very hard on issues of movement, issues of access.”
The Americans said they were also looking for Israeli gestures to strengthen Abbas’s hand in Palestinian elections in January, when his Fatah faction will face a major challenge from the militant Islamic group Hamas.
Palestinian Authority officials acknowledged the stakes for Abbas in the Rafah negotiations.
”If Rafah is not opened, it’s really going to undermine the president,” said Palestinian Authority spokesperson Diana Buttu.
Stalled negotiations
Earlier this month, the Israeli security cabinet approved a decision to reopen the Rafah terminal under joint Egyptian and Palestinian control, with European Union observers monitoring the crossing.
But negotiations stalled over Israel’s insistence on having access to real-time surveillance feeds from the terminal — a demand the Palestinians have rejected as an infringement on their sovereignty.
Palestinian officials said international envoy James Wolfensohn had submitted a package of compromise proposals, including a measure to route the surveillance feeds through the Europeans.
”We said to Wolfensohn, we accept your bridging proposals,” chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said. ”But there is another side [in the talks] called Israel.”
On the fourth leg of a hectic Middle East swing, Rice appealed to both parties to fulfil their obligations under the internationally drafted peace ”road map” aimed at eventual creation of a Palestinian state.
She reiterated her call on the Palestinians to dismantle militant groups responsible for attacks on Israel and warned the Jewish state that an expansion of its settlements in Palestinian territory was ”counter … to US policy”.
”We’ve been very clear that there should be no activities that prejudge a final status agreement, and we are in constant discussion with the Israelis about those matters.”
Hamas leader shot
Early on Monday, Israeli troops shot dead the leader of the armed wing of Islamist movement Hamas in the northern West Bank city of Nablus during an arrest operation to round up members of the radical faction.
Amjad al-Hinawi, one of Hamas’s top commanders in the Palestinian territory, was killed after he opened fire, fleeing from a building where he was holed up.
Hamas called Hinawi one of its ”top explosives experts” and issued a warning to Israel.
”We tell the Zionists: you will soon pay for your crimes and regret every drop of Palestinian blood you have spilt,” the statement read.
Another Palestinian was killed and two others wounded in the Gaza Strip near the security fence with the Jewish state after Israeli troops opened fire. — Sapa-AFP