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Israel, Palestinians reach election plan
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-12-08 21:16
Israel and the Palestinians have agreed on the logistics of the
upcoming election to replace Yasser Arafat, a senior Palestinian official said
Wednesday, but he denied reports that the two sides had worked out a broader
deal to end their decades-old conflict.
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| PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas waves as he arrives at the Palestinian
martyrs cemetery near the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut December 8,2004.
[Reuters] | The Palestinians had demanded that
Israel cease military operations and withdraw from Palestinian cities and towns
to allow candidates to campaign for the Jan. 9 presidential elections to replace
Arafat, who died last month.
The Palestinians also insisted that residents of east Jerusalem be
allowed to vote, a demand that Israel has resisted. The Palestinians want east
Jerusalem, annexed by Israel after the 1967 Mideast war, to be their future
capital.
The two sides have agreed to hold the elections using the same procedures
that were in place for the last Palestinian elections, Palestinian Cabinet
minister Saeb Erekat said.
"We received assurances that the elections of the West Bank, east
Jerusalem and Gaza Strip will take place as they did in 1996," Erekat said. "I
am satisfied with that. I am happy."
During those elections, residents of east Jerusalem were allowed to vote
at five polling stations in the region, but their ballots were officially
classified as absentee ballots.
A senior Israeli official confirmed that the two sides had reached an
agreement in principle, based on the 1996 election.
"That would be the model. There would be adjustments and changes, but
that would be the model," the official said on condition of anonymity.
The agreement comes amid signs of warming ties following Arafat's death.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said he would like to meet with top
Palestinian officials after the election and has offered to coordinate his
planned withdrawal from Gaza with them.
Interim Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, a leading candidate to replace
Arafat, has been negotiating with militant groups to end attacks on Israel and
has pressured Palestinian media to stop disseminating anti-Israel propaganda.
One of the 10 Palestinian presidential candidates, meanwhile, dropped out
of the race Wednesday. Hassan Khreishe, the acting speaker of the Palestinian
Legislative Council, said Israeli restrictions had hampered his campaign. Recent
polls showed Khreishe badly trailing.
On Tuesday, the official Egyptian Middle East News Agency MENA reported
that Egypt had brokered terms of an Israel-Palestinian truce and principles of
an accord for ending the overall Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
MENA said Cairo would call for a July peace conference in Washington to
include all parties to the agreement: Israel, the Palestinians, the United
States and the European Union.
Erekat said the Egyptians were working to support a Palestinian truce, to
help train the Palestinian security forces and to revive stalled peace talks,
but he said the report of an agreement on broad principles for ending the
conflict was premature.
"What's going on is that the British suggested an international
conference, and we support this, but to say we reached a final conclusion is
premature," he said.
Egypt has said it would take responsibility for security on the
Gaza-Egypt border after an Israeli pullout scheduled for next year. Israel wants
Egypt to beef up its security presence on the border to prevent weapons
smuggling into Gaza.
Meanwhile, Palestinians fired an anti-tank missile Wednesday into the
Jewish settlement of Nissanit in Gaza, causing no damage or injuries, the army
said. Israel Army Radio said the missile fell near a nursery school.
Palestinian militants frequently fire rockets and mortar shells at
settlements and army bases, but they rarely cause casualties.
On Tuesday, Hamas militants broke three weeks of relative calm in Gaza,
setting off a bomb that killed a soldier and triggered Israeli retaliation that
killed four Palestinian militants.
Hamas claimed its men dug a tunnel to booby-trap a chicken coop, then lured
troops to the area with the help of a double agent and exploded the bomb,
killing an Israeli handler and his bomb-sniffing dog.
Israel TV reported that the dog set off the bomb, killing the soldier and two
Palestinians guarding the entrance to the tunnel. The report said the tunnel was
dug in the direction of the nearby Israeli border fence and appeared designed to
allow Palestinian attackers to sneak into Israel.
Tuesday's bombing was the first fatal Palestinian attack in Gaza since
Arafat's death on Nov. 11.
The bombing took place next to the Karni crossing point
into Israel, the only place where food and produce can enter or exit the crowded
coastal strip. Soldiers closed the gates after the bombing, and the military
would not say when the crossing will be reopened.
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