Israeli Soldiers’ Kidnapers Get 9-Year Jail Term

Two men convicted of kidnaping two Israeli soldiers last week were jailed Saturday for nine years with hard labor by a military court in the West Bank Palestinian self-rule enclave of Janin.

“You disturbed our relations with Israel. You kidnaped Israeli soldiers despite the Palestinian Authority being in charge,” the court’s verdict read.

Israel froze its hand-over of West Bank towns to the Palestine Liberation Organization for one day after Wednesday’s kidnaping of the two soldiers in Janin by Jamal abu Rub and Ahmed Samarah, members of the Black Panthers, a militant group affiliated with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction. The two snatched the soldiers in retaliation for Israel trying the same night to arrest a Fatah man in nearby Qabatiyeh.

Palestinian security forces negotiated the soldiers’ release. The Fatah man wanted by Israel surrendered to Palestinian forces and was returned to Jericho where, under an Israeli prisoner release agreement, he was to have stayed.

The Fatah man, Samir Zakarneh, was sentenced Saturday by a Palestinian military court in Jericho to five years in prison for breaking the conditions of his release.

Also Saturday, the Palestinian Authority approved an election law for January’s first Palestinian balloting.

“The Cabinet approved the elections law,” Salim al Zanoun, acting chairman of the PLO’s Palestinian Council, told reporters at the end of the meeting. “The law will be referred to a legal committee to make the final draft.”

Nabil Shaath, planning and economic cooperation minister for the authority, said the final draft will be published in local newspapers “in a few days.”

Self-rule began in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho last year under the 1993 Israel-PLO peace accord. In a deal signed in September expanding self-rule, Israel is to withdraw from six West Bank towns by year’s end ahead of the January vote.