Israel to Ease Some Curbs on Travel From Gaza, West Bank

Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian in the West Bank city of Jenin on Wednesday, even as the army agreed to ease some restrictions on residents of the Gaza Strip in a rare meeting of security officials from the two sides.

In a tacit acknowledgment that Palestinian attacks have subsided in recent days, the Israeli army agreed to extend the hours that the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt stays open and to allow Palestinians to repair their airport, bombed out of commission by the Israelis this month.

Palestinian security chief Maj. Gen. Abdel Razek Majaydeh, who participated in the talks, said the army also agreed to ease restrictions on drivers traveling from Gaza City south to the border. Army roadblocks have made it nearly impossible for Palestinians to drive freely from one end of Gaza to the other for months.

In a separate move, the army also eased its blockade around the West Bank city of Jericho, allowing residents to travel between the city and Jerusalem. Jericho has been sealed off for much of the past year, as have many other towns in the West Bank, in what Israel says is an effort to block attackers from reaching Israel or Jewish settlements. Palestinians say the blockades have wrecked their economy and are collective punishment.

Even as it moved to ease some restrictions in the West Bank and Gaza, the army continued its hunt for suspected gunmen. A large force of troops swept into the West Bank village of Azzoun before dawn Wednesday, conducting house-to-house searches and arresting at least 17 men, including several activists of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s mainstream Fatah movement and three Palestinian security officers. The village is under Israeli security control.

In the late afternoon, tanks rolled 300 yards into Jenin, in what the army said was the pursuit of a group of gunmen whom troops had spotted approaching a nearby Jewish settlement. The army said the gunmen had barricaded themselves inside an empty building.

Palestinian sources said a 50-year-old bystander, Walid Saadi, was shot dead when helicopter gunships opened fire with machine guns. The army confirmed that a helicopter had opened fire but said it shot at two armed men, hitting one of them. A Palestinian security officer reportedly was seriously injured in the standoff, and five other people were lightly injured, according to Palestinians.

The army said three Israeli border policemen were lightly injured. The standoff ended when Palestinian and Israeli security officers negotiated a pullout of the troops and tanks. In a statement, the army said the Palestinians had promised to “take full responsibility for the event” and “prevent terrorists from coming out of the area.”

The army has been operating frequently in Palestinian-controlled areas since the Israeli government declared Arafat “irrelevant” this month and announced that it would crack down on militants itself as it confines Arafat to virtual house arrest in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

The violence continued as Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres reported some progress in talks with Ahmed Korei, the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council and a key peace negotiator.

An Israeli newspaper reported the secret talks over the weekend, and Peres won public backing for them from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who initially disavowed the contacts. Sharon has said repeatedly that Israel won’t conduct talks unless all Palestinian attacks halt.

Speaking to reporters during a trip to Ukraine, Peres said he thought that “the chances for peace had reached the lowest point, the zero point,” before the latest talks, but now “I think we have departed from the zero point and begun to move.”

According to published reports, Peres and Korei, better known as Abu Ala, have drafted an agreement in which Israel would agree to the Palestinians’ immediately declaring a state on 42% of the West Bank and most of the Gaza Strip. Complex issues such as the status of Jerusalem, the fate of Jewish settlements, the final borders of a Palestinian state and the resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem would be left for future negotiations.

“So far, I cannot talk about encouraging positions. Also, I cannot say that there are outcomes,” Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed-Rabbo said in an interview with the Voice of Palestine on Wednesday. “Yet, there are certain ideas under discussion. . . . We are still at the beginnings.”