Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon faced a deep rift in his national unity government on Monday after the army tightened a punishing blockade on the West Bank city of Ramallah, disrupting the lives of thousands of Palestinians, said reports.
Even before Sharon began his first cabinet meeting, Labor ministers went on the offensive over the first concrete measure the hard-line leader has taken against the Palestinians since being sworn in last Wednesday pledging to restore security for Israel in the face of more than five months of deadly violence, said Haaretz newspaper.
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was quoted as telling Israel Radio that the siege policy "requires review and will be reviewed."
But Transportation Minister Ephraim Sneh and several senior army officers took a tougher stand and voiced doubts over the wisdom of the tightened blockade around the West Bank city, said the daily.
Sneh told the paper that the siege “could do Israel more harm than good.”
"The disadvantage is that it causes serious embitterment among the general public, the sense that they have nothing left to lose, and it also causes the state of Israel severe damage internationally."
Cabinet minister Matan Vilnai, a former senior army officer, said that through "the injury to innocent populations, we are pushing more and more Palestinians to the path of terror."
Sources told the paper that the decision to tighten the blockade was made by Sharon in consultation with Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, and that Peres was not notified ahead of its implementation.
Sharon's office said the closure around Ramallah was tightened to foil a planned "terrorist attack" from the area, said Haaretz.
"The IDF tightened its closure over Ramallah in the wake of specific information on a terrorist attack that was planned (to originate from) within the area of the city," the prime minister's office said in a statement.
"The Prime Minister's policy is to ease (restrictions) wherever possible, at the same time taking action in areas in which terrorist activity is taking place," the statement said.
Israel Radio quoted an unnamed senior security official as disclosing that a number of those suspected of involvement in the planned attack were arrested in an operation the official said was made possible by the closure clamped on the city.
The measures, which representing a tightening of a five-and-a-half-month closure on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, were denounced as a "new war" by the Palestinians who accused Israel of turning their cities into prisons and called for urgent UN intervention, said AFP.
"The new plan which aims at implementing a collective siege and causing a paralysis in Palestinian life is an escalation of war against the Palestinian people," the Palestinian leadership said in a statement.
Meanwhile, around one thousand demonstrators joined Palestinian Authority officials on a march in the Ramallah area on Monday to protest at the closure.
Haaretz said that Fateh leaders will meet later Monday to discuss ways to fight the tightened blockade, amid warnings by the organization's West Bank secretary that the measure would spark even greater escalation of the violence in the territories.
"What, do they think this blockade will cause people to raise a white flag?" asked Fateh West Bank Secretary Hussein al-Sheikh. I am certain that this blockade will push people into a worse situation and more severe escalation of the Intifada."
Israeli Arab MK Mohammed Barakeh echoed al-Sheikh's stance, calling the blockade "a hothouse for creating the next terrorist attack ... a recipe for the explosion to come," the daily quoted him as saying – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
