RaptureRH
Advanced Member
Member # 5120
|
posted
World Bank advocates sunken road from Gaza to West Bank
By Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent
The World Bank supports building a transit passage between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in the form of a sunken road, but Prime Minister Ariel Sharon favors a rail link because managing security would be easier, Haaretz has learned.
The United States will finance a study examining options for linking the Gaza Strip and the West Bank via Israel.
The Israeli response to the study, which is due to be completed in January, "will indicate its future intentions regarding a Palestinian state that would maintain contact between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip," a diplomatic source said Thursday.
The study was initiated by the World Bank, which asked for American sponsorship to moderate Israel's anticipated objection to its conclusions.
Israel approved the study initiative at a meeting last week between Nigel Roberts, World Bank director for the West Bank and Gaza, and Baruch Spiegel, an adviser to Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz. The U.S. administration conditioned the project funding on the agreement of both parties.
The study will examine transit options such as a multilane road crossing Israel in a deep trench, an elevated road and a rail link between the Erez checkpoint with northern Gaza and the Tarqumiya checkpoint near Hebron. The Palestinian Authority would be responsible for the passage, according to the plans.
An Israeli report prepared in 2001, during the first months of the intifada, recommended that a road be built, partly at ground level and partly sunken or elevated.
A passage between the two parts of the PA was at the center of the disengagement talks held among Israel, the PA and the U.S. The Palestinians were concerned that the pullout from the Gaza Strip would be the end of the process and that Israel planned to separate the Strip and the West Bank. That's why they demanded a transit passage between them, even a temporary one.
Mofaz and the Middle East Quartet's envoy to the region, James Wolfensohn, have discussed opening an experimental passage from Gaza to the West Bank, using bus and later truck convoys accompanied by Israeli vehicles.
Wolfensohn returned to the region Thursday and will hold individual meetings with Mofaz, Sharon adviser Dov Weissglas and PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Friday. He is to meet with Vice Premier Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmad Qureia in the next few days.
Wolfensohn will work an agreement to operate the border crossing between Egypt and the PA at Rafah and talks to operate the crossings between the PA and Israel. Thursday, Israeli and Palestinian officials met to discuss Egypt's offer to have Egypt and the PA operate the Rafah crossing under the supervision of a third party. Israel would be able to monitor the movement of people entering the PA using cameras and other technology to transfer the information to the Shin Bet security service.
Under the proposal, goods would be moved via the crossing being built by Israel at Kerem Shalom, to keep Gaza within the customs arrangement Israel has with the West Bank.
Sharon, Peres and Mofaz, who have not formally discussed Israel's position on the crossings issue, are to meet on Sunday.
In the past Peres and Javier Solana of the European Union reached an agreement to have European inspectors operate the crossing in Rafah. However, now only Palestinian inspectors are being considered.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=632636
Posts: 163 | From: Houston TX | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged | 
|
Printer-friendly view of this topic
