barrykind
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Israel Eases Curfews as Arafat Sacks Top Cops
Wednesday, July 03, 2002
JERUSALEM — Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has dismissed two top security chiefs in a move seen as part of an effort to reshape the Palestinian security forces, officials said.
Also, Israel's army on Wednesday lifted its curfew for longer periods than usual in several Palestinian cities and towns it controls. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon convened his Security Cabinet for talks on other possible measures that could ease the restrictions imposed on Palestinians.
Arafat, who has been under intense pressure to restructure the security forces, sacked Jibril Rajoub, the preventive security chief in the West Bank, and Ghazi Jibali, the police chief in Gaza, Palestinian officials said.
Rajoub told the Associated Press that he had been informed of Arafat's decision, while Jibali insisted the reports were "rumors."
Rajoub is one of the most powerful figures in the West Bank but has had a falling-out with Arafat.
During a previous incursion into the West Bank, Israeli forces destroyed Rajoub's headquarters, and the men inside surrendered, with his approval — causing him to lose face among many Palestinians. He was not among those taken into custody, which also contributed to sentiment against him.
Israel and the United States have insisted that the Palestinians must streamline the multiple, overlapping security agencies and use them to prevent terror attacks against Israel.
When Arafat reshuffled his Cabinet last month, he named Gen. Abdel Razak Yihiyeh as interior minister in charge of the security services, a post Arafat held previously.
Meanwhile, the army lifted the curfew in four of the seven Palestinian areas it currently occupies.
The military has been allowing Palestinians out of their homes for about three hours every third day so they can stock up on food. But Wednesday, the curfew was lifted for 11 hours in Hebron. In three other places, the curfew was removed for periods of five to 10 hours.
Israel says it would like to find ways to ease the restrictions, and the Security Cabinet planned to discuss the possibility of allowing tens of thousands to return to work inside Israel, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Israel radio.
Before the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000, about 150,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip entered Israel every day, most of them to work. Today, the number is close to zero.
But Ben-Eliezer warned that Israel still faces the threat of suicide bombings.
"On my desk there are warnings about men and women suicide bombers," he told Israel radio. "Today it is easier [for militant Palestinian groups] to find a suicide bomber than to find the explosives."
The army moved into Palestinian cities and towns and imposed the curfews after a pair of suicide bombings in Jerusalem two weeks ago that killed 26 Israelis. About 700,000 Palestinians are confined to their homes as the army searches for suspected militants.
Since the military clampdown began, 15 Palestinians and no Israelis have been killed.
In the southern Gaza Strip, the army captured two Palestinian gunmen after a shootout near the Jewish settlement of Ganai Tal in the southern Gaza Strip. Two soldiers were wounded, the army said. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the attack.
The army also said that it arrested a wanted Palestinian when it rounded up students at a college in the West Bank city of Hebron on Tuesday. Israel lifted the curfew in the city in order to allow students to take exams — then detained students at the Palestinian Polytechnic Institute for questioning.
The wanted man, who was not named, was among a group of militants who had been holed up in the main government and security building in Hebron last week, the army said. After a four-day siege, Israel blew up the building Saturday, saying it believed 15 militants were still inside.
But no bodies were found in the rubble, and various reports said the men managed to slip out, possibly through underground tunnels.
The army said it has arrested more than 10 Palestinian suspects in Hebron this week.
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