Israel Halts Joint Venture on Security

The Israeli army Thursday ordered its Palestinian counterparts to clear out of 10 military installations they have shared since the mid-1990s, ending their last remaining joint venture born out of the defunct peace process.

The order came shortly after an Israeli soldier was killed and others wounded in a noontime bombing at a joint “district coordination office” between the Jewish settlement of Neve Dekalim and Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip. The attack, which the Palestinians said injured four of their own, was “the last straw,” prompting the decision to break up the Israeli-Palestinian offices, one Israeli army spokesman said.

Palestinian police officers refused to leave the installations, however, awaiting orders from Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.

“We are talking about an explosion that hit the Israeli-Palestinian liaison unit’s war room,” said another Israeli spokesman, Ron Kitrey. “This is, in fact, an escalation, since we had become accustomed to rocks and even shooting” at the offices.

The liaison offices--eight in the West Bank and two in Gaza, all of which are on Israeli-controlled soil--gave Israeli and Palestinian officers a place to work together to solve problems and were a cornerstone of the interim peace accords that provided for limited Palestinian autonomy. But cooperation between personnel assigned there has declined amid the 2-month-old Palestinian uprising.

Since the fatal shooting of an Israeli police officer by his Palestinian partner in late September, each group has tended to stay within its own section at the installations, an army spokesman said.

Joint patrols ended soon after the violence flared Sept. 28.

Kitrey added that investigators were trying to determine whether Thursday’s explosion was the result of a mortar shell lobbed from outside or a grenade thrown from within by one of the Palestinian police officers assigned there. Palestinian officials did not comment.

Hours after the district office explosion, an intense firefight erupted at the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel after Palestinians ambushed an Israeli army patrol. One Palestinian was killed, as was an Israeli soldier, officials reported. A second Israeli soldier was critically wounded.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank city of Nablus, an activist from the militant Islamic group Hamas died in a car explosion. Ibrahim Bani Odeh was found dead in his car, which came to a stop in the middle of the road, indicating that he was driving when he was killed. There were no other casualties reported.

Palestinian security officials said Odeh was killed by explosives planted by someone collaborating with the Israelis. Israel denied any involvement in his death.

Thursday’s violence raised anew Israeli doubts about Arafat’s desire to return to peace negotiations. Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami said Arafat indicated that he wanted to revive talks when he spoke with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright not long after a car bomb killed two Israelis and wounded dozens of others Wednesday in the northern town of Hadera.

Another round of diplomatic activity took place late Thursday night, as Arafat met with United Nations Special Envoy Terje-Roed Larsen and European Union representative Miguel Moratinos. Arafat also spoke with Albright again, Palestinian sources reported.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, meanwhile, consulted with his Cabinet in Jerusalem, including Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh, who had just returned from a meeting with Arafat’s chief of staff and a Palestinian minister at the Erez crossing, sources reported. The men discussed ways to reduce the violence, the sources said.

Senior government officials told Israeli radio earlier in the day that Barak is also considering several tactics to retaliate against Palestinians who attack Israelis, including the use of special units to strike at the organizers of such terrorism, tightened economic sanctions and broader military strikes.

Dropping a training bomb on Nablus near police headquarters was not part of that plan, however, Israeli military officials said. They apologized to the Palestinians for having done so Thursday.

The concrete bomb, which contained no explosives, detached from an Israeli jet fighter because of an electrical malfunction, the military said. No injuries were reported.