Both Sides Work to Avoid Tumult in Middle East

Israeli soldiers, Palestinian police and Muslim clergy members worked in unison Friday to prevent any new outbreaks of violence at Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque and throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip that could thwart renewed U.S.-backed peace negotiations.

The cooperative moves came on the heels of a Washington summit with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to get the peace process back on track after Israeli-Palestinian violence last week that left at least 75 people dead and more than 1,000 wounded.

The summit, hosted by President Clinton, failed to reach any substantive agreements on the issues that led to the violence, and it ended with only the scheduling of another meeting.

But both sides appeared determined Friday to avoid further conflict that many believe could bury the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords.

In Washington, the State Department announced that Secretary of State Warren Christopher will stop in Israel on Sunday to confer with Netanyahu and Arafat about the next round of talks, which are scheduled to begin that day at the Erez crossing point between Israel and Gaza. Christopher will stay in Israel only one day before continuing on a previously announced trip to Mali, Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Africa and Angola.

State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said Christopher’s purpose was “to communicate the very firm view of the United States that results are what matter; that we hope that these talks will be conducted with a great deal of urgency, with cooperation on both sides; and that we’ll see results as soon as that is possible.”

In Jerusalem, more than 3,000 Israeli soldiers and police crammed the entrances and narrow alleys of the Old City’s Muslim quarter to check the bags and identity cards of Arab worshipers after Islamic extremists opposed to the peace agreements called for new confrontations after Friday prayers.

Some worshipers were interrogated and turned back.

*

At Al Aqsa, where three Palestinians were shot to death by Israeli soldiers in a clash last week at one of the holiest sites of Islam, a few dozen worshipers began pelting Israeli riot police with stones at the end of prayers. Muslim clerics acted quickly to calm the crowd while police moved Jewish worshipers and tourists back from the nearby Western Wall, the holiest shrine of Judaism, as a preventive measure.

“We don’t want to give the aggressors a chance to close the mosque. Please go home quietly,” prayer leader Mohammed Hussein said over a loudspeaker.

The rock-throwers dispersed and Jews were allowed back to the wall, but right-wing and religious Israeli politicians criticized police for the 25-minute evacuation, saying they should have removed the Palestinians instead.

Jerusalem Police Chief Arieh Amit responded that he is in charge of security and “would rather have Israelis leave on their feet for 10 minutes than to be carried out on stretchers.”

In the West Bank and Gaza, meanwhile, Palestinian police and political leaders said orders were being carried out to keep their people from contact with Israeli soldiers. Palestinians have been under a full military closure for more than a week, banned from leaving their towns and in some cases their villages.

Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordecai began loosening the closure by letting people leave their villages around the West Bank city of Bethlehem and allowing food and fuel trucks in and out of Gaza and the West Bank town of Jericho. He said he will continue to lift it gradually as security permits.

He ordered some of the tanks that have ringed West Bank cities since the clashes moved back, but in Nablus, at least, residents said they could still see them.

“We are making an effort to alleviate tension, to allow the incoming and outgoing of commerce, to ease the internal tension and gradually restore the situation as it was,” Mordecai said on Israeli television.

Israeli and Palestinian security officials agreed to set up 300-yard-deep buffer zones around army outposts near Jewish settlements and at border checkpoints in the Gaza Strip so that Arab demonstrators cannot get near enough to engage in further clashes.

They also reached an agreement to reopen the Karni crossing for commercial traffic from Gaza. Under the agreement, Palestinian police will carry pistols instead of automatic rifles.

The Israelis are hesitant to work with armed Palestinian police again after the two sides fought pitched gun battles last week.

Israeli police say the Palestinians wantonly shot at them, while Palestinian police say they fired to defend their people only after Israelis opened fire on unarmed Palestinian civilians.

Israel has been calling for the Palestinians to prosecute their police officers and members of security forces who fired on Israeli soldiers, with whom they had been working in joint patrols in the West Bank and Gaza. The patrols have been suspended in the West Bank since the fighting, and the Israeli army reinforced its numbers at several points throughout the West Bank during Friday noon prayers, the principal prayer time for Muslims.

Nonetheless, Netanyahu’s foreign policy advisor, Dore Gold, said the coordination and cooperation between security forces Friday signaled that the Washington summit has had positive effects.

“We are already seeing the positive impact on the situation on the ground. Both the Israelis and the Palestinians are attempting to calm the situation and build confidence so they can proceed diplomatically. The lines of communication have been restored,” Gold said.

Palestinians have deemed the summit a failure because their leader, Arafat, walked away from it empty-handed. Arafat, who consulted with allies in the Arab world and Europe after leaving Washington, is expected back today after a final stop in Cairo to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who declined Clinton’s invitation to the summit because he said it was headed for disaster.

Times staff writer Norman Kempster in Washington contributed to this report.