Likely Israel-PLO Pact Asks Both Sides to Give Ground : Mideast: Tentative accord reached in Swiss talks even details border-station window glass, sources say.

As details emerged here of tentative accords reached early Monday between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization on the future of Jericho and the Gaza Strip, it was clear that both sides would have to give significant ground on issues ranging from the security of Jewish settlers to control of international frontiers.

Sources said the proposed agreements, reached by Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat in Switzerland, are so detailed they specify the type of window glass that will be used at border stations.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who spent most of the day consumed with a crisis developing in his government over national health insurance, made no public comment on the proposals, which were faxed to him from Switzerland on Monday. He was reported to be studying the intricate set of compromises, and there were sharply conflicting reports in the Israeli media on the prospects for a final agreement that would pave the way for Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and Jericho soon.

Early in the day, Israel Radio, which reported details of the tentative agreements for the first time, announced, “The indications from the prime minister’s bureau are that, by and large, Rabin endorses these agreements.”

Israeli Television, though, took the opposite tone in its evening broadcast. It quoted sources close to the prime minister saying unofficially, “Whatever progress was made (between Peres and Arafat) was certainly not enough.”

Underscoring that skepticism, Environment Minister Yossi Sarid, who joined Peres during the weekend talks, told Israeli Television on arrival from Switzerland, “There is still a long, long way to go.

“We are not close to a full agreement. But certain issues have been almost finalized.”

Ahmed Tibi, an adviser to Arafat, also confirmed to Israeli Television: “There is no agreement.”

In a telephone interview, Tibi said, “It’s true that on the first day there was a very positive atmosphere. Certain understandings were reached. Later, Israel went back on some of the things that were agreed upon.” Asked to identify the most important outstanding dispute, he said it was the border crossings.

The statements came against a backdrop of general optimism here that a final round of negotiations scheduled for later this week in Cairo would clear the last remaining obstacles to the start of Palestinian self-rule, and that Peres and Arafat could sign an official agreement as early as Sunday, when both said they are planning to meet again in Cairo.

Peres was decidedly upbeat as he left Switzerland before dawn Monday for Washington, where he is scheduled to meet on Wednesday with Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Vice President Al Gore. He indicated that he and Arafat had settled most of the disputes that have delayed Israel’s original commitment to begin withdrawing its troops from the occupied territories Dec. 13.

“There had been very complicated problems,” Peres said. “We were able to negotiate many of them, maybe most of them.”

Official reports detailing the agreements stated that Peres’ delegation had ceded to PLO demands for what the Palestinians called “safe passages”--land routes entirely under Palestinian authority that would permit Palestinians and other religious pilgrims to pass from Jericho to holy sites outside the autonomous zone of Jericho. Among those sites is Nabi Moussa, a shrine near the Dead Sea that Muslims have revered for centuries as the tomb of Moses.

But “on control of the border points, Israel got most of what it wanted,” state radio reported.

According to several accounts on state radio, in Israel’s Hebrew press and confirmed by Minister Sarid, Arafat agreed to Israeli proposals to set up a complex system of surveillance at the border crossings between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, and at the Allenby Bridge between Jericho and Jordan. Specifically, the PLO said it would permit Israeli state security to observe every individual and each item entering the autonomous region from behind two-way mirrors.

Arafat’s delegation further agreed, according to those reports, to Israeli demands for what state radio called “a sterile room” at the border posts, where Israeli security officers will be permitted to interrogate and search “suspicious” persons without Palestinian officials present.

The border crossings have been among the most contentious of the outstanding issues between Israel and the PLO, and Sarid confirmed Monday night that the two sides are now “very, very close to full agreement” on the dispute.

For the Palestinians, control of their own borders is both a symbolic and logistic assertion of sovereignty after 27 years under Israeli occupation. For Israel, though, the issue is one of security and the ability to police against the influx of arms or illegal immigrants entering an autonomous land in its back yard.

Most accounts in Israel’s highly regarded Hebrew media stated that the weekend talks resolved all major outstanding disputes between the two sides and included a Palestinian agreement to permit Israeli security to control key roads in the Gaza Strip. Israel had insisted on the patrols as a way to ensure the safety of the 5,000 Jewish settlers who will remain in Gaza until the fate of Jewish settlements throughout the territories is decided in future negotiations.

It remained unclear, though, whether Peres and Arafat resolved a final disagreement over the size of Jericho. Most of Israel’s major daily newspapers reported that the two had reached “a gentlemen’s agreement” under which Peres agreed to recommend that the prime minister offer a larger territory than his negotiators have in the past.

But state radio disputed the reports, announcing, “The remaining bone of contention appears to be the extent of withdrawal of the Israeli army in the Jericho area.”