Israel, PLO Talk Past Deadline : Mideast: Security for Jewish enclaves in West Bank is key issue. Frustration erupts into violent street protests.

PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres held last-ditch talks Saturday night in a rare session at the end of the Jewish Sabbath but failed to meet their self-imposed deadline for an agreement on expanding Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank.

The talks at the Erez checkpoint on the Israel-Gaza Strip border followed a day of violent street demonstrations throughout the West Bank to protest the missed deadline and press for the release of about 5,500 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

The day, which also marked the first anniversary of Arafat’s return to Gaza from 27 years in exile, underscored widespread frustrations over a peace process that is a year behind schedule.

Peres and Arafat had set the July 1 deadline for completing an agreement on Palestinian elections and Israeli troop withdrawal from the West Bank four months ago in an effort to inject some urgency into their sluggish negotiations.

Initially, Arafat had insisted that missing the deadline would endanger the entire peace process. As the date approached, the two sides rushed to meet it while playing down its importance.

Peres, Arafat and their negotiating teams worked through the night and ended the session without reaching an agreement or even issuing a joint statement. Peres and Arafat said they would talk again soon, perhaps within a day or two. An agreement is expected to be signed by mid-July, possibly in Washington or Cairo.

Early today, Israel Army Radio reported that the two leaders had agreed on a date for signing a full accord, but it did not report what that date would be.

Israelis say the primary stumbling blocks revolve around security for the about 140,000 Jewish settlers living among the Arab majority in the West Bank. Now they are thoroughly protected by Israeli soldiers.

“The main issues upon which Israel is standing firm, and it will continue to do so, are security problems,” Environment Minister Yossi Sarid said before Peres and Arafat went into their talks.

The government wants time to build bypass roads so that settlers will not have to go through Palestinian territory to get from their isolated villages to Jewish urban centers.

The two sides reportedly have agreed on a withdrawal from the northern West Bank towns of Janin, Qalqiliya, Nablus and Tulkarm before Palestinian elections are held toward the end of the year. The cities of Ramallah--the Palestinians’ de facto seat of government--and Bethlehem are to follow, but Hebron, home of sites holy to both Jews and Muslims, is not under discussion.

Palestinian leaders said a main point of contention is the degree to which Israeli troops will pull back from towns and villages.

“We are talking about areas and not [just] cities,” Mohammed Nashashibi, finance minister for the Palestinian Authority, said on the Voice of Palestine radio. “We understand redeployment, for example in Janin, as the area of Janin and not like the Israeli understanding of it being [only] the city of Janin.” Also still at issue is the size of the legislative council that Palestinians will elect, whether East Jerusalem Palestinians may stand as candidates and where they will vote.

The many delays and missed deadlines since Arafat and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed a peace accord at the White House in September, 1993, have contributed to an erosion of public support for the peace process and strengthened both leaders’ political opponents.

Rabin has said that he does not want to redeploy until he is certain Palestinian officials have firm control of the situation in areas already under their authority, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho.

He has often criticized Arafat for being unable or unwilling to rein in the Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas, and the smaller Islamic Jihad--extremist groups whose suicide bombers have killed 65 Israelis since October in an effort to destroy the accord for limited Palestinian self-rule.

Many Palestinians, meanwhile, criticize Arafat for bowing to Israeli delays and demands and failing to improve their lives in the areas under his rule for the last year.

Arafat’s opponents contributed to the ranks of hundreds of Palestinians in the streets of Nablus, Janin, Ramallah and Tulkarm on Saturday. The protesters threw stones and bottles at Israeli soldiers, who responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and clubs. Palestinians said more than 50 demonstrators were arrested in the ugly confrontations, the likes of which have not been seen since the intifada, or Palestinian uprising.

The biggest protest was in Nablus, where 600 people marched a week after three Palestinians were killed by army gunfire in another violent street clash.

In Hebron, 16-year-old Ibrahim Khader Deis was shot dead Saturday after he reportedly stabbed an Israeli soldier guarding a Jewish enclave. The incident provoked street protests there.

Demonstrators throughout the West Bank vented their frustration with Arafat, as well as with the Israeli government.

“It was obvious the first few months after the signing that Arafat and the Sulta [Palestinian Authority] were not going to accomplish anything significant like redeployment, elections and a prisoner release,” said Zein Eliyan, a 24-year-old engineering student protesting in Ramallah. “So as you see today, the people again, like we did in the intifada, are taking things into our own hands.”

The six-year intifada against Israeli occupation, helped bring the two sides to the negotiating table and the return of Arafat to Gaza.

The release of Palestinian prisoners is a grass-roots issue for Arafat that was to be on the agenda of his talks with Peres on Saturday night, according to a Palestine Liberation Organization official. Tensions over the issue have increased with a two-week hunger strike by prisoners and a statement last week by Police Minister Moshe Shahal that those with “Jewish blood on their hands” would not be released.

On Voice of Palestine radio, Hisham Abdelrazik, a leader of Arafat’s Fatah faction and member of the Palestinian negotiating team, said, “These prisoners are soldiers of war. They fought during a war, so the claim that their hands are drenched with Israeli blood is a statement we refuse.”

He said Palestinian negotiators are demanding a timetable for release of all prisoners.

Times researcher Summer Assad in Ramallah contributed to this report.