Israel opens new goods passage in north-eastern West Bank (Roundup)

Jan 9, 2007, 16:18 GMT

Tel Aviv/Ramallah - Israel opened a new passage for goods in the north-eastern West Bank Tuesday morning, as part of goodwill gestures promised by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the Israeli military announced.

The newly-built passage in the Jordan Valley allows direct transportation of agricultural produce from the southern West Bank city of Jericho and elsewhere in the valley to northern Israel, a military spokesman, Captain Zidki Maman, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Until now, trucks had to make a detour through the northern West Bank city of Jenin and were unable to exit the occupied territory via 'road 90,' a central traffic artery running along the eastern West Bank and through the Jordan Valley.

The new crossing will raise the standard of living of Palestinian farmers in the area, who grow mostly tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, dates and spices, by lowering transportation costs and increasing their profits, Maman argued.

In their December 23 summit, Olmert also promised Abbas to remove dozens of existing roadblocks in the West Bank, but that move has yet to be implemented.

Maman said the removal of roadblocks would come in the 'next stage' of Olmert's plan to ease restrictions on the movement of Palestinians. 'There are still no dates,' he conceded.

He said that in the meantime, the Israeli army had lowered security at 16 checkpoints throughout the West Bank, where soldiers now carry out sample checks of random cars. Previously, troops checked each vehicle, leading to longer queues, he said.

Israel has said it will carry out the concessions to the moderate Abbas to strengthen him against hardliners in the Palestinian autonomous areas, but the president has come under fire from critics for holding the parley with Olmert, with Prime Minister Ismail Haniya of the radical Islamic Hamas movement saying it delivered no results.

Convening the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee in Ramallah Monday, Abbas himself complained that Israel had not implemented any of the understandings reached in the summit and said he would not meet the Israeli leader again until he had fulfilled his promises.

The PLO Executive Committee, dominated by Abbas' Fatah party, also condemned an Israeli decision to build a new settlement in the occupied West Bank. Israel insists the settlement of Maskiyot, located in the northern Jordan Valley, is not new because it is an old military outpost established in 1981 and at the time earmarked for civilian settlement.

Abbas, meanwhile, is reportedly planning to restart negotiations over a unity government with Hamas, one month after the last cycle of talks ended in stalemate and prompted the president to call for early parliamentary and presidential elections.

According to the Palestinian Sama news agency, Abbas' latest decision comes after his elections call exacerbated the fierce fighting between Fatah and Hamas.

Quoting 'sources close to Abbas', Sama reported that the president had been caught unaware by the internecine violence which followed his elections speech, and was advised by Arab states to restart the unity talks.

The secretary-general of the Arab League, Amr Musa, on Tuesday expressed his horror at the ongoing bloodletting between Hamas anad Fatah, describing it as a 'huge catastrophe for the Palestinian cause.'

The Palestinians needed no lessons or advice on the matter, because they 'knew exactly how dangerous these incidents were' for the progress of their cause, he said.

Abbas hopes to bring about a unity government which will comprise all Palestinian factions and will bring an end to the international boycott of the Palestinian government, caused by Hamas' refusal to renounce violence, honour past Israeli-Palestinian agreements, and accept the existence of the Jewish state.

Previous rounds of talks have floundered over Hamas' refusal to moderate its policies toward Israel.