Top Israeli Officers Warn of West Bank 'Volcanic Eruption'

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday July 11, 2002 19:21 by one blisset

Top Israeli Officers Warn of West Bank 'Volcanic Eruption'

Top Israeli Officers Warn of West Bank 'Volcanic Eruption'


Pressure mounted on the Israeli government to loosen its grip on the West Bank after senior army officers warned their new commander the occupied cities are a powder keg.

Israel reoccupied seven of the West Bank's eight major urban centers three weeks ago, with only the isolated desert town of Jericho not retaken, although it remains under tight Israeli blockade.

Israeli public television said top army officers had pressed General Moshe Yahalon Wednesday for a partial withdrawal, saying weeks of curfews had left the occupied towns on the "verge of a volcanic eruption."

The hawkish new army boss, himself a former head of the central command which includes the West Bank, took office Tuesday, succeeding General Shaul Mofaz.

Mofaz said earlier this month that the reoccupation would continue for "a long period ... at least several months," echoing comments by hardline Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The Israeli daily Ha'aretz quoted a senior defense official as saying that Israel is planning to loosen its grip where the security threat is deemed to have dropped sufficiently, saying the army's presence is necessary but not sustainable in the long-term.

Israel has said its troops, which swarmed into the region after two suicide bombings and an attack on a West Bank settlement killed 31 Israelis, could stay in the region until Palestinian elections are held.

Israeli officials have said they are examining ways of relieving the dire conditions in the West Bank, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians live under curfews that are lifted from time to time for a few hours.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres discussed the issue in his first talks this week with new Palestinian ministers appointed in Arafat's administrative and security reshuffle.

The governor of Bethlehem warned that the Israeli reoccupation was hurtling the Biblical birthplace of Jesus Christ towards a humanitarian crisis.

"Thousands of residents have lost their jobs, hundreds of others have been arrested, and about 1,500 are without shelter after the destruction of their homes," governor Mohammed Madani told the official WAFA news agency.

He said the reoccupation and curfews had "totally paralyzed business".

Even when the curfews are lifted for a few hours, movement for the population is difficult.

The army lifted the curfew on Nablus from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm (0500 to 1100 GMT) Thursday, but was not allowing people from the surrounding villages into the city, blocking around 1,000 people at checkpoints, an AFP reporter on the scene said.

At the same time, Israeli forces maintained their sweep of the region which they have scoured relentlessly for wanted suspects since invading on June 19, little more than a month after they ended a previous six-week occupation.

Palestinian security sources said Israeli troops arrested 13 members of various Palestinian groups overnight near Nablus.

The prisoners included six members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, three from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement and two from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine arrested in Assirah Ash Shamaliya village.

Two more men, whose affiliation was not given, were taken prisoner in the village of Taluza.

An Israeli military spokesman, who only spoke of 10 arrests, said the suspects were wanted in connection with armed attacks against soldiers or Jewish settlers in the West Bank, or planned attacks in Israel.

Army radio meanwhile said at Wednesday's meeting Yahalon had taken a different stance to his predecessor over Arafat, advising that he should not be expelled from the Palestinian territories.

Yahalon said such a move would strengthen Arafat and not weaken him, but he backed Israel's policy of weakening and sidelining the Palestinian leader.

Israel earned a rare rebuke from its main ally Washington when White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the closure this week of the administrative offices of the Palestinian Al-Quds university in east Jerusalem was "troubling."

The university is headed by one of the most moderate voices in Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Sari Nusseibeh, who has proposed ground-breaking compromises with Israel to seek a peace deal.

"This action does not contribute to the fight against terrorism, does not promote reform of Palestinian institutions," Fleischer said, adding that US officials were discussing the matter with Israel.

In another development, Israel welcomed a report by Amnesty International, a persistent critic of the Jewish state, which condemned Palestinian suicide bombings and other attacks on civilians.

Amnesty said that since the current intifada, or Palestinian uprising, began in September 2000 at least 350 civilians, the vast majority of them Israeli, had been killed in more than 128 attacks by armed Palestinian groups or individuals.

"Whatever the cause for which people are fighting, there can never be a justification for direct attacks on civilians," it said in a statement accompanying a new report on the Middle East crisis.

Amnesty also urged Israel to comply with international human rights standards in all its operations.

© AFP 2002