Israel Ending Closure of Jenin

The Israeli military blockade that has encircled and isolated the beleaguered West Bank city of Jenin for the better part of three years was being dismantled Thursday, Israeli officials said.

Known as a particularly fervent stronghold of armed Palestinian radicals, Jenin has been cut off from surrounding towns and villages by barricades off and on since the current Palestinian uprising began in September 2000.

The city last had a respite from the army closure in the summer, during a short-lived Palestinian cease-fire.

The decision to open travel into and out of Jenin was made on the heels of other minor Israeli concessions and in the shadow of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s threat to impose a land boundary unless Palestinian officials cracked down on militant factions and returned to negotiations.

Despite ongoing bloodshed on both sides, Israel has in recent days made modest moves required by the stagnating, U.S.-backed peace plan known as the road map, which also calls on Palestinians to rein in militant groups. For their part, Palestinians are suspicious that Israel might be edging toward drawing a unilateral boundary between the two sides.

Officials in Jenin met the promise of the falling blockade with skepticism. After all, some leaders said, Israel can afford to knock down the dirt barriers ringing Jenin thanks to a barrier it is building around and through the West Bank.

The barrier looms just west of the city.

“This is a very minor step to make it look like they’re easing some of the restrictions imposed on the Palestinians,” said Qaddoura Moussa, the Jenin leader of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction. “We hear some great statements from Israel, but on the ground it’s dismal and there’s major destruction.”

This week, Israel ordered the evacuation of four illegal outposts in the West Bank, a move criticized by settlers opposed to surrendering territory and peace groups that dismissed it as an empty gesture. The languishing peace plan requires Israel to tear down dozens of the controversial outposts, which are settlement seedlings erected without the authorization of the Israeli government.

But of the four outposts scheduled this week for obliteration, only one is inhabited. The government is scrambling to work out a compromise to move the residents into a nearby settlement.

The Palestinian leadership has been deeply worried since Sharon made an ultimatum threatening to impose his own solution to the bitter conflict if peace talks don’t resume.

The Israeli leader was expected to speed up the construction of the barrier, which Palestinians fear could eventually become a national border that would cost them a portion of the West Bank.

Meanwhile, an Egyptian envoy visited Arafat in his war-scarred Ramallah headquarters in another attempt to prod the peace talks back to life. Egypt has been working to bring about a cease-fire among Palestinian militants and revive negotiations. So far, its efforts have done little to reverse the momentum of conflict.

Times special correspondent Maher Abukhater in Ramallah contributed to this report.