The Middle East peace process suffered a setback Tuesday when Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas called off a summit with his Israeli counterpart, Ariel Sharon, in protest over the number of Palestinian prisoners who are to be released Wednesday.
Abbas made the decision under pressure from militant groups that denounced as a “disgrace” the planned release Wednesday of 339 inmates instead of a promised 540.
Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, said the cancellation of this week’s summit reflected “a major crisis” in the peace process and urged the Bush administration to intervene.
Sharon and Abbas last met on July 20. Each held a separate meeting with President Bush in Washington in late July.
Palestinians said Israel’s stand on the release of prisoners, coupled with its determination to complete a security barrier that cuts into Palestinian territory along the West Bank and its refusal to withdraw from more West Bank towns, has strained not only diplomatic relations but also a three-month cease-fire announced June 29 by the main Palestinian militant groups.
“What Israel is doing will complicate the peace process and frustrate supporters of peace among Palestinians,” Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan said.
Abbas issued a statement Tuesday saying, “The hutna [cease-fire] is still valid. It’s not over yet.”
Israel is holding more than 6,000 Palestinians. While Palestinian leaders want amnesty for them all, Israeli officials say that would be dangerous because the cease-fire is temporary and scores of the prisoners are militants.
The Israeli army said 339 prisoners would be freed at four West Bank checkpoints and at the Erez border crossing in the Gaza Strip, revising a figure of 342 on an earlier release roster.
Another 99 prisoners would be released in the near future, the army said.
Renunciation of terror
Israeli officials said each released prisoner must sign a document pledging not to participate in terrorist acts. Violators would be reincarcerated.
Israel decided Monday to delay further troop withdrawals from West Bank towns after gunmen ambushed a car on Sunday, wounding four Israelis. Israel demands that the Palestinians take action against the shooters before its troops are pulled back.
With tensions rising, Israeli police have barred parliament members and Orthodox Jews from walking Thursday to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, which is known by Muslims as Haram ash-Sharif and is the site of the Al Aqsa Mosque. The marchers were to deposit a symbolic stone on Tisha B’av, the Jewish day of mourning for the destruction of the First and Second Temples on the mount.
A police spokesman said the visit might trigger riots by Muslims. Police late last month banned all visits by Christians and Jews to the site, which was visited by Sharon three years ago, an act that Palestinians claim sparked their bloody 34-month uprising.
Meanwhile Tuesday, the fate of 17 Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade militants in Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Ramallah compound remained unclear.
Since Friday the men, in open rebellion against Arafat’s authority, have rejected his order to have them transferred to the Jericho prison that is run by Palestinian wardens but under the supervision of U.S. and British officials.
Amid conflicting reports, a senior Arafat aide said Tuesday the 17 had been transferred overnight from the compound to Jericho. Palestinian officials would not confirm the transfer.
Israeli military has insisted that the 17 men be moved as a prerequisite to the possible withdrawal of Israeli troops from Ramallah and the suspension of a travel ban on Arafat.
Islamic militants have told Arafat to rescind his decision to move them. Hamas, one of the groups that is party to the cease-fire, told Arafat not to “execute Israel’s directives and transfer militants to Jericho.”
A Palestinian official on Tuesday played down the standoff and claimed the decision to move the militants, all of them wanted by Israel, had been made “to protect them against Israeli assassination missions.”
Wall protesters arrested
Also Tuesday, Israeli authorities arrested 39 international activists as they protested the building of the security barrier in the West Bank.
The activists had formed a human chain for days to protect the home of a Palestinian farmer. The man’s house is being zoned out to the Israeli side of the fence.
On Tuesday morning 15 border police at the village of Mashah bundled the activists into buses and drove them to a prison in the nearby settlement of Ariel. The fate of the protesters still is being decided. Tuesday night, they said by cell phone that they were being interrogated without a lawyer present.
Bulldozers later plowed down the shed and chicken coop of farmer Hani Mohammed Amer, 47, as he and the villagers watched.
