Following a three-hour discussion, the Israeli security cabinet decided Sunday not to allow Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat to leave Ramallah, Israel Radio reported. However, he will be allowed to leave his compound, where he has been under house arrest for the past two months.
The discussion was called after the PA arrested suspects in the murder of cabinet minister Rehavam Ze'evi, shot dead in a Jerusalem hotel last October by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Israel Radio reported that the heated discussion continued well over the time allotted to it and that the weekly cabinet meeting was postponed as members of the security cabinet tried to reach a compromise.
Twelve of the fourteen members of the security cabinet voted in favor of allowing Arafat to leave his headquarters, two abstained. National Infrastructures Minister Avigdor Lieberman (National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu), who had threatened Saturday to resign from the government if the travel ban was lifted, was one of the minister who abstained, reported Haaretz.
Palestinian cabinet minister and chief negotiator Saeb Erekat called the Israeli cabinet's decision "shameless," saying that it proved that Israel has no plan to end the intifada, except to continue with its policy of destruction.
PA security chief, Amin el-Hindi, said that the joint Israeli-Palestinian security meeting scheduled for Sunday evening had been cancelled as a result of the cabinet decision.
Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers manning a roadblock south of Nablus shot and seriously wounded a pregnant Palestinian woman traveling in a taxi approaching the barricade a short time ago.
Family members told Israel Radio they were en route to a Nablus hospital with the woman, who was suffering labor pains.
Family members said soldiers at the Adahiya roadblock motioned for the vehicle to pass, and then opened fire, wounding the woman.
Additionally, Israel army investigators Sunday morning carefully searched the area south of Ashkelon city for remains of a possible Qassam 2 missile fired overnight into Israel.
Residents in the vicinity of the coastal city, located about five kilometers north of the Gaza Strip, heard a large blast overnight, Army Radio reported.
Several Qassam 2 missiles, with a reported six kilometer range, were fired into Israel several weeks ago. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
