Israelis, Palestinians Patrol Jointly in Gaza

Israeli and Palestinian security forces began joint patrols in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, a day after Islamic militants killed two Israeli soldiers and escaped.

A leading figure in Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s Labor Party warned that if the Palestine Liberation Organization fails to stop attacks on Israelis from the autonomous zones in Gaza and the West Bank town of Jericho, it could endanger negotiations on self-rule in the rest of the occupied lands.

“One of the most important foundations of the Gaza-Jericho model is joint Israeli-Palestinian security work,” said Ephraim Sneh, a Labor legislator and reserve general.

“It is aimed, among other things, at preventing such attacks,” Sneh told Israeli television. “It has to be clear that if this model doesn’t work, there won’t be any point in continuing the negotiations in the next stages.”

Under the Israel-PLO autonomy accord, the joint patrols are to secure three roads in the strip. Each patrol is made up of an Israeli and a Palestinian jeep, both identified by orange flags. In the Jericho zone, joint patrols began a week earlier, immediately after the hand-over of authority there.

Israeli troops and Palestinian police also set up new checkpoints on Gaza’s main north-south thoroughfare, and motorists were asked to show identification and open their trunks.

Israeli troops checked cars with yellow Israeli plates, and Palestinian police checked white-plated Gaza cars.

The heightened security came after two Israeli soldiers were shot and killed Friday at the Israeli-controlled Erez checkpoint between Gaza and Israel. The gunmen drove up in a car, killed two approaching soldiers and fled into the autonomous zone. Neither Israeli troops nor Palestinian police pursued them.

Both the fundamentalist Islamic group Hamas and the extremist Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility for the attack.

Angered by the killings, some Israeli leaders demanded that peace talks be curtailed, and Rabin barred Gaza residents from entering Israel until May 29.

The PLO’s ability to keep Muslim opponents of the autonomy accord in check and stop them from attacking Israeli targets is seen as a key test of the agreement.

PLO officials have said they need more time to organize the Palestinian police force before they can effectively block such attacks.