Friday, Aug 02, 2002
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By Atul Aneja
The Israeli Defence Minister, Benjamin Ben Eleizer, has approved a plan targeting extremists, the implementation of which could stall efforts to ease the hardship of the Palestinian people. The Israeli cabinet had on Wednesday morning, prior to the cafeteria attack, approved a proposal for a step-by-step pullout of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip in co-ordination with the Palestinian security establishment. The first stage involved a halt in violence in the Gaza that was to be achieved through a combination of dialogue between the Palestinian security forces and leaders of extremist groups like the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad and use of calibrated force. The Palestinian forces, observers say, may have to take recourse to arresting and disarming terrorists in order to achieve calm. Israeli forces, in return, will undertake a phased withdrawal from Gaza. Co-ordination between the Palestinian security and the Israeli forces is vital and the two are expected to consult and review the steps as and when they are adopted. No timeline has been fixed, but in case the experiment proves successful, it is likely to be repeated in the other Palestinian cities of Jericho, Hebron and Bethlehem. The Israeli Defence Minister is expected to discuss this move with the newly appointed Palestinian Interior Minister, Abed Razek Yahiya. But this meeting may now be delayed due to Wednesday's attack. The Palestinian Authority has roundly condemned the incident, but there were street celebrations among supporters of the Hamas which carried out the attack. The Hamas has called the attack an expression of retaliation to the recent Israeli air raid on the Gaza that killed the extremist group's military chief, Salah Shehadeh, and several civilians. On another note, the Palestinian Finance Minister, Salim Fayad, had on Tuesday received an instalment of $15 million from Israel. The amount is part of hundreds of millions of dollars of Palestinian taxpayers' money that Israel had collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. It had, however, frozen the funds in the wake of the wave of suicide attacks against its citizens. The Palestinian Authority, meanwhile, is set to receive considerable amount of funds from other sources as well. Saudi Arabia earlier this week transferred one instalment of $15.4 million to an Arab League account that was created after the organisation's summit in Beirut in March. With this transfer, Saudi Arabia has paid $46.2 million to the Palestinians through this account. The Beirut summit had decided to contribute $55 million a month for six months to the PA in order to enable it to face the Israeli blockade of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
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