Chronological Review of Events/January 2000 – DPR review

D i v i s i o n    f o r    P a l e s t i n i a n    R i g h t s

Chronological Review of Events Relating to the

Question of Palestine

Monthly media monitoring review

January 2000

 5

Israel released 22 prisoners to mark the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, according to a spokesperson for the Israeli Prisons Authority.  The PA Minister for Prisoners Hisham Abdelrazek said the release did not fall within the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement, stressing that the released prisoners were arrested for civil and criminal offences, while the agreement stipulated security prisoners only.   Twenty prisoners were released at Nahal Oz, a crossing point between Israel and the Gaza Strip, while the remaining two were set free near the town of Tulkarem in the north of the West Bank.  (AFP)

6

Israeli Army officers handed over full control of 10 West Bank villages to the Palestinians in a brief ceremony held in Ramallah.  The handover followed an Israeli Army withdrawal from six camps in the West Bank the day before.  In all, Israel handed over 2 per cent of the territory to total Palestinian control and transferred civilian authority to over another 3 per cent, where Israeli would still retain security control. The PA took over four Israeli camps and military locations in Jenin and Nablus which had been under Israeli control, including Mahaneh Yosef, which was located 15 kilometres from Nablus.    (AFP)  

 9

The Israeli Army said it had cut its forces protecting Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  An Army spokesperson said that for budgetary reasons and after examining the security situation, it had been decided that forces guarding the settlements would be substantially reduced.     (AFP)

10

Israel was easing a number of restrictions on Palestinians wanting to work or do business in Israel.  Shlomo Dror, spokesperson for the Coordinator of Israeli Activities in the Occupied Territories, said his Government was lowering the minimum age for eligibility for work permits for Palestinians and boosting the number of businessmen and doctors allowed to drive their cars into Israel.   Israel was also cutting fees for commercial traffic entering Gaza through the Israeli-run Qarni checkpoint.    (AFP)

16

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak told his cabinet that he was postponing for up to three weeks the third and final Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank as stipulated under the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum.  Senior Palestinian negotiators as well as some members of the Mr. Barak’s cabinet protested the delay.  Palestinian Minister for Planning and International Cooperation Nabil Sha’ath, said the PA rejected the suspension and demanded that Israel withdraw according to the schedule.  Israeli Industry Minister Ron Cohen called the delay a mistake which could have unfortunate consequences.  Mr. Barak said he wanted to postpone the withdrawal pending the outcome of a three-way summit scheduled for this week in Washington between the two leaders and US President Bill Clinton.    (AFP, BBC News, Financial Times Ltd., XINHUA)

17

An EU delegation met with PA President Arafat in Ramallah to discuss the EU’s role in the peace process and relations with Palestinians.  Portuguese Foreign Minister Jaime Gama, whose country holds the current presidency of the EU, was accompanied by Javier Solana, Secretary-General of the EU Council of Ministers and Mr. Miguel Moratinos, EU Special Envoy to the Middle East.  (DPA)

PA President Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Barak held a four-hour meeting in Tel Aviv.  No progress had been reported although reports stated that both sides agreed to make a concerted push to reach a framework deal by their agreed February 13 deadline.  (AFP, Reuters, XINHUA)

19

President Arafat left for Washington to meet with US President Clinton.    Mr. Arafat said he would ask Mr. Clinton for an urgent and determined intervention to push the peace process forward and force the Israelis to implement agreements they had signed.  In an interview with the Saudi newspaper Okaz, Mr. Arafat also said that he would ask President Clinton to support a declaration of a Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its capital, and United States recognition, particularly by President Clinton   (AFP)

Palestinian detainee, Lafi al-Rajabi, 20, died while he was held in custody in the Israeli Hadarim prison in the West Bank.  LAW Society, an affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists,  accused Israeli police of torturing Mr. al-Rajabi, which had led to his death.  Mr. al-Rajabi’s mother rejected the Israeli authorities’ claim that her son had committed suicide, because she said she had seen bruises on his back, shoulders and under his arms before burying his body.   (Reuters)

Teddy Katz, an Israeli historian, said he had uncovered credible evidence that troops massacred 200 Palestinians in a single village on the day Israel came into being in 1948.   Mr. Katz said that  testimonies and  information he  got  from  Jewish and Palestinian witnesses and from soldiers who were there,  indicated that  at least 200  people from the  village of Tantura, near Haifa in northern Israeli, had been killed by Israeli troops, making it one of the biggest massacres of Palestinians.   (Reuters)

20

PA President Arafat expressed his confidence in the peace process after meeting with US President Clinton in Washington, which he called fruitful and productive.  President Clinton said he would do whatever he could to achieve a comprehensive peace deal but added that no one can get everything if the peace process was to move forward.  Reports stated that Israel, Syria and the Palestinians had made it clear that the US President must be a party to any peace between them, realising that unless they completed work during Mr. Clinton’s term, they would have to wait for months or years for his successor to develop a Middle East policy.   (BBC News, Reuters, The Los Angeles Times, XINHUA)

A spokesperson from the office of Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin said Mr. Beilin would be recommending that the Israeli Government allow Palestinians to return to two northern villages which Israel demolished after the 1948 war.  He added that the Israeli Supreme Court had a May deadline for an explanation why the residents of the Palestinian Christian villages of Ikrit and Birem were never allowed back, as promised at that time.  (BBC News)

21

More than 300 American rabbis called for Jerusalem to be shared by Israel and the Palestinians.  A statement issued by the rabbis, who are members of the Maryland-based Jewish Peace Lobby, acknowledged that they were entering territory fraught with religious tension and entrenched feelings on both sides, but said the only solution was for the city to be shared.  (AFP)

The issue of Israel’s labelling export goods made from Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories as “Made in Israel,” was discussed between the EU Foreign Policy Commission Chris Patten and Israeli Minister for regional cooperation, Shimon Peres, during a meeting on in Brussels.   Mr. Peres said that for the first time, there had been an understanding among the parties concerned in the Middle East to formulate a policy that might be accepted jointly by the EU.  Mr. Patten said they were looking for a solution to a difficult issue, and hoped it could be achieved with the support of the Israeli Government and the PA over the coming weeks.   (AFP)

26

PA President Arafat visited the EU Headquarters in Brussels and discussed the peace process with 15 EU foreign ministers and EU Foreign Policy Head Javier Solana.  At that meeting, he expressed support for EU efforts to play a bigger role in the Middle East peace process.  (Reuters)

27

Israeli police evicted a group of Jewish settlers from a house in East Jerusalem after the Palestinian owners complained about the illegal seizure of their home.  The Jewish settlers, members of the extremist Ataret Cohanim group, had entered the home, which had not been occupied, through the roof and removed all the furniture and threw them into the street before the police arrived to evict them.    (DPA)

30

PA President Arafat met separately with US President Clinton and Secretary of State Albright at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.    PA Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Nabil Shaat said he felt that the US was really quite engaged and interested in continuing to push the process forward.   Meanwhile in Cairo, Israeli Prime Minister Barak, who met with Egyptian President Mubarak, had promised to turn over territory to the Palestinians within the next 10 days, in line with the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum.  (AFP, Reuters)

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators had begun 10 days of intensive talks at an undisclosed location in Jerusalem to discuss issues on the framework agreement and the final status talks.    (AFP, AP, Reuters)

31

Russia and the US co-hosted a meeting in Moscow of the international group for the promotion of multilateral Middle East peace talks.  Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Vasily Sredin and US Deputy Secretary of State Edward Walker received representatives of some 40 countries including Israel, Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the PA.  Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy and US Envoy Dennis Ross also attended the meeting.  In a message addressed to Mr. Arafat, Russia’s Acting President Vladimir Putin said, Russia would keep working consistently to attain a durable and fair peace in the Middle East region which could be secured through the restoration of legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people.    (AFP, DPA)

The US would give the PA $100 million worth of security equipment as part of the aid package linked to the Wye River Memorandum.  According to PA Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Nabil Shaath, the equipment would consist of surveillance and scanning devices for the crossing-points separating Israeli and Palestinian-controlled territory.  The package was agreed on during PA President Arafat’s recent visit to Washington.   (DPA)

A delegation of the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD) arrived in Gaza to attend the inauguration of several projects financed by the SFD.  The projects consisted mostly of hospitals, roads and a nurse training centre.   The SFD had contributed $300 million to finance development projects in the West Bank and Gaza since 1994.  (AFP) 

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