AL QUDS, Sept 15: Israel beefed up security for the holiest Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur on Sunday, sealing off the Palestinian territories and placing the reoccupied West Bank under strict curfew after a suspected suicide bomber was arrested.
The army seals off the Palestinian territories from Israel for the holiday every year, but this year it took advantage of its reoccupation of most of the West Bank since June to slap a curfew on towns and cities including Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Bethlehem, Al Khalil, Tulkarem and Qalqiliya.
The move means that the 100,000 residents of Nablus, in the north, will spend a twelfth straight day locked in their homes, Palestinian officials said.
An Israeli military spokesman said the measure was justified in view of the heightened risk of attacks by Palestinian militants, one of whom was arrested Saturday in the northern West Bank while preparing to launch a suicide bombing.
Israel and the Jewish diaspora will start celebrating Yom Kippur, the day of atonement for 24 hours starting at sundown on Sunday.
DOCUMENT: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement has admitted it is drafting a document with support for the European Union to declare a halt on attacks on civilians inside the Jewish state, although no final version has been agreed upon among the group’s factions.
At the same time, violence has continued in the occupied areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlements are still seen by all factions as legitimate targets for attack, a stance Israel rejects.
MEETING WITH BUSH: The Palestinians, with no diplomatic breakthrough on the horizon, hailed the first meeting between one of their top officials and US President George W. Bush, even as the White House downplayed the contact as nothing more than a handshake.
Nabil Shaath, minister for international cooperation until the whole cabinet resigned last week ahead of a no-confidence vote in parliament, “met Bush at a reception in New York and they had a 10 minute discussion about the situation in the Middle East,” a top Palestinian official said.
Friday’s encounter was Bush’s first with a Palestinian official since taking office early last year.
A White House spokeswoman had initially insisted she was not aware of any such meeting. But later a senior official confirmed Bush had shaken hands with Shaath at a reception on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
Shaath told the Palestinian WAFA news agency that Bush had elaborated on a key Middle East policy speech he delivered in June.
“Bush committed again to do everything he said in his speech concerning the Palestinian issue and how it is necessary and important for the Palestinian people to have a Palestinian state,” Shaath said.
“Bush said all parties were responsible for what is happening (in the Middle East), and that the Israeli side had to end the occupation and stop the suffering of the Palestinians.
“He said he was in pain when he saw the pain of the Palestinians.”
While never having met with any of the Palestinian leadership, Bush has met Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon six times, stoking Arab charges of bias.
In his June policy speech, Bush implicitly backed Israeli calls for the ouster of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, arguing he was not doing enough to tackle corruption and violence against Israel.—AFP