By
The Associated Press
NETZARIM JUNCTION, Gaza Strip - Israel eased its tight closure of Palestinian areas yesterday, and officers from both sides toured trouble spots as part of a U.S.-backed plan to quell violence and restart high-level Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Both sides are willing to resume negotiations, a senior Palestinian official said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, who would head the Israeli negotiating team, unexpectedly cut short a visit to France yesterday afternoon and headed back to Israel. Frederic Desagnaux, a spokesman for French President Jacques Chirac, said Ben-Ami was suddenly called back to Israel for "an important Cabinet meeting."
The negotiators are to draft a treaty outline, with each side listing its position on points of dispute, a Palestinian official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Once the work is completed, U.S. envoy Dennis Ross would come to the region to try to narrow the gaps. Major differences remain on the fate of Palestinian refugees and control over a key Jerusalem holy shrine.
In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel relaxed the sweeping restrictions on Palestinian travel it had imposed after the Sept. 28 outbreak of fighting.
In a first step, Israel lifted its blockade of the West Bank towns of Qalqiliya and Jenin, opened Gaza International Airport and permitted travel from the West Bank to Jordan and from Gaza to Egypt.
At Gaza's Netzarim junction, army bulldozers removed concrete barriers that had blocked Palestinian travel on the main north-south road. Israeli and Palestinian officers stood nearby, studying maps and then shaking hands.
The confidence-building measures are part of a U.S. plan submitted earlier this week to both sides by CIA chief George Tenet, Palestinian officials said. The plan outlines a timetable for steps to be taken by both sides in order to reduce friction.
Israel's travel restrictions were to be lifted entirely within the next few days, according to the timetable. Brig. Gen. Abdel Razek Majaida, a Palestinian security chief, said the Israeli army would also begin pulling back from positions near Palestinian areas that were set up in recent weeks.
Joint Israeli-Palestinian security patrols - a pillar of interim peace accords - will be resumed in 10 days, Majaida said. Such patrols were called off shortly after the outbreak of fighting that has killed 364 people, including 313 Palestinians, 37 Israeli Jews, 13 Israeli Arabs and a German doctor.
Even if security coordination resumes in full, it is unlikely violence can be quelled entirely. In Jerusalem yesterday, an Israeli passer-by defused a pipe bomb attached to a mobile phone just moments before it was to go off.
The man found the bomb in a suspicious-looking bag that had been thrown into a garbage bin, Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said. The man disconnected the phone and the pipe bomb. Moments later, the phone rang, with the ring apparently meant to set off the explosive, Ben-Ruby said.
Palestinian officials, meanwhile, said Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was determined to calm the situation and restart negotiations.
The unofficial deadline for a peace deal is Jan. 20, when President Clinton leaves office. However, even if agreement was reached, its fate would be uncertain. Israel's hawkish opposition leader, Ariel Sharon, stands a strong chance of ousting moderate Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in a Feb. 6 election.
Sharon has said he would not honor any peace accord negotiated by Barak before the election. He has also said the interim accords that have guided relations between the two sides for the past seven years were "null and void."
