Israel to Keep West Bank, Gaza Sealed Off

The Israeli government decided Sunday to extend its military closure of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip on a week-to-week basis, cutting back sharply on the number of Palestinians allowed to work in Israel--but also defining the country’s likely border with a future Palestinian state.

At the insistence of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Cabinet extended the prohibition on the more than 120,000 Palestinians entering Israel each day to work but added that it will review security measures each week.

While announced within the context of steps to curtail Palestinian attacks upon Israelis, the government’s move had the effect of firming up Israel’s intention to pull back inside its borders as they existed before 1967’s Six-Day War with the Arabs--once an agreement is reached on Palestinian self-government.

“The closure provides an answer to our internal security problems,” Health Minister Chaim Ramon said on emerging from the regular Sunday meeting. “Whoever wants to prevent terror has to cut Israel off from workers in the (occupied) territories.”

But Dan Meridor, a leader of the opposition Likud Party, complained that the Cabinet action will only help the Palestine Liberation Organization in negotiations on Palestinian self-government by “shaping” the future Palestinian state and by defining its borders.

“Israeli law is being bent to the political needs of the PLO,” Meridor declared.

But Rabin believes that a separation of Israel from the occupied territories is vital in curbing terrorist violence--and in winning support from Israelis for concessions that most here acknowledge will be required for any settlement.

Rabin ordered the closure two weeks ago in the Gaza Strip and a few days later on the West Bank in a response to the killings of 15 Israelis there and in Israel itself in the preceding month. The closure bars most of the 2 million Palestinians in the territories from entering Israel; more than 120,000 of them had held regular jobs here, largely in construction and agriculture.

Rabin, reiterating his strong commitment to a negotiated peace, also said that he plans to meet Wednesday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Ismailiya on the Suez Canal in an effort to resolve problems hindering resumption of peace talks.

The key issue is Palestinian participation in those talks--scheduled to resume next week in Washington--after Israel expelled 415 Palestinians as suspected Islamic militants in December. Of those, 396 remain in exile in southern Lebanon.

News reports from Tunis, Tunisia, on Saturday quoted Palestinian leader Faisal Husseini as saying that Israel need not bring back all 396 before resumption of the negotiations but must indicate its willingness to move ahead on substantive issues involved in autonomy. On Sunday, Husseini told the Associated Press that his remarks had been distorted. He said the Palestinians want the immediate repatriation of all Palestinians expelled since 1967.

Under pressure from ministers belonging to the leftist Meretz Bloc, the Cabinet decided to inject more money into the West Bank and Gaza Strip to compensate for jobs lost through the territories’ long-term closure. In one proposal, government investment would be more than tripled from $47 million in 1992 to $177 million this year; most of the money would come from Palestinian taxes.

“We have to invest in the territories,” said Environment Minister Yossi Sarid of Meretz. “We have to compensate people who lost their jobs. . . . I cannot shirk responsibility for the fate of hundreds of thousands of people.”

Sarid also expressed his sharp disappointment over the apparent disdain among Israelis for the heavy loss of Palestinian lives.

“There are people in the country who expressed enormous concern for several hundred (Israeli) greenhouse owners,” Sarid said, “but I didn’t hear a word of concern for the hundreds of thousands of children in the territories, though they are being killed in greater numbers. As long as we are the occupying power there, we have to take responsibility.”