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RAMALLAH, May 17: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said on Friday elections will be held in the Palestinian territories after “the end to the occupation of our lands” by the Israeli army.
He made the remark during comments about the Israeli invasion of the West Bank that began on March 29.
“Elections will be held as rapidly as possible after the end to the occupation of our lands,” Arafat added.
“Unfortunately, (Israeli) military operations are continuing, and they (the Israelis) are preparing to carry out more,” Arafat said.
“I wonder just how long the world is going to sit idly by while these aggressions continue,” he added.
Palestinian parliamentary speaker Ahmed Qorei said in remarks published on Friday that Arafat welcomed a proposal by lawmakers to hold municipal elections this year and a legislative poll in 2003.
“The legislative council elections will take place at the start of next year. For the municipal elections, they will be organized before the end of this year,” Qorei told the Palestinian daily Al-Quds.
The only elections to have been held under the Palestinian Authority were in 1996, two years after the authority came into existence following the signing of the Oslo peace accords.
Arafat was elected president with 85 per cent of the vote, and the 88-member parliament was also chosen then.
On Thursday, the parliament adopted a resolution calling for the elections in response to an address by Arafat to lawmakers a day earlier.
During that speech, Arafat bowed to domestic and international pressure and announced a widespread overhaul of the Palestinian Authority, widely seen as ineffectual and corrupt. He also called for new elections to be held soon, without giving a date.
ISRAEL SWEEPS WEST BANK: The Israeli army staged raids across the West Bank overnight, arresting some 40 people in Jenin and its battle-scarred refugee camp as it pursued its aggressive hunt for Palestinian militants.
A Palestinian gunman was also shot dead by soldiers after trying to infiltrate a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, while an Israeli Arab woman died after being shot by unidentified gunmen at an army checkpoint in the West Bank.
Dozens of Israeli tanks, backed by helicopter gunships, rolled into Jenin and the camp in the early hours, sparking clashes with armed Palestinians when they opened fire on several targets, Palestinian security sources said.
The troops arrested some 40 Palestinians during the operation, they said.
Among those picked up inside the city was Kamal Abu Al-Wafa, a leader the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah responsible for many attacks on Israelis, the sources and witnesses said.
Wafa was the only wanted man among those arrested, the sources said.
The troops had withdrawn to the outskirts of the camp by 10:00 am (0700 GMT) and were preparing in the early afternoon to leave the northern city following the clashes, the army said.
At the camp, the soldiers destroyed the house of an official of Hamas, Jamal Abu Haija, other witnesses said.
When soldiers failed to find Abu Haija at home they ordered out his wife and children and then threw grenades into the house, setting it on fire, the witnesses said.
The Palestinians have accused Israeli forces of committing war crimes and massacring Palestinians during a major reoccupation of the Jenin refugee camp last month. Israel has denied the accusation.
More than 50 Palestinians, both fighters and civilians, as well as 23 Israeli soldiers are known to have been killed in the battle for the camp, which is home to about 15,000 people and a bastion of anti-Israeli militants.
The Israeli army was now blocking journalists from the Jenin area, according to an AFP correspondent who tried to reach the scene.
Israeli tanks also rumbled into the West Bank towns of Tulkarem and El- Bireh, near Ramallah, on Thursday night, Palestinian security officials said.—AFP
