“In the coming days the deployment will be extended to central and southern Gaza—including the Philadelphi route, on the Gazan-Egyptian border, which has been a major flash point,” the Israeli daily Haaretz reported January 23.

In the days following the deployment, Palestinian groups have observed a de-facto truce as they engage in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority toward signing a cease-fire agreement with Tel Aviv. “Everybody feels the responsibility and the importance of putting an end to the situation that we are all living right now,” Abbas said on Palestinian television January 23. “We can say that there has been significant progress in the talks. Our differences have diminished, and therefore we are bound to reach an agreement very soon.”

“We might give a chance for calm,” Mahmoud Zahar, a leading figure in Hamas, told the press, “but there is a price for that.” Hamas has demanded the release of its members locked up in Israeli jails, and an end to Israeli aggression in the occupied territories. The Associated Press reported that the government of Egypt has offered to host negotiations between Hamas leaders and the Palestinian Authority.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which has ties to Fatah, the leading organization in the Palestinian Authority, has also gone along with the cease-fire talks. Abu Mohammed, Al Aqsa’s spokesman on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, said at a January 22 news conference in Gaza that the group would accept a truce “if it is mutual and if Israel also commits to it.”  
 
Israeli offensive takes toll
Over the past two years, Tel Aviv has decimated the leadership and ranks of many Palestinian organizations—particularly Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have been in the forefront of the suicide bombing campaign—through systematic assassinations and sweeping arrests including use of “administrative detention.” The latter has meant arrests without charges of Palestinians suspected of involvement in armed resistance to the Israeli occupation. About 7,500 Palestinian political prisoners are currently held in Israeli prisons. Over the past year, Tel Aviv has also carried out large-scale assaults and house-to-house sweeps of Palestinian towns and refugee camps—particularly in the Gaza Strip—aimed at capturing or killing Palestinian fighters and expanding the Israeli Army’s control over the border regions.

This offensive has taken an increasing toll on the Palestinian side. Throughout the four years of the intifada, or uprising, which began in 2000, slightly more than three Palestinians were killed for every Israeli. Last year, however, that rate rose to nearly seven to one. During the recent Palestinian presidential election campaign, Abbas ran on a platform of ending the armed resistance by Palestinians and opening negotiations with the Israeli regime for a “peaceful” settlement of the conflict. No candidate from any of the opponent Palestinian groups mounted a serious challenge to his candidacy, and he was elected with 62 percent of the vote.

The Israeli government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has stated willingness to make secondary concessions to the Palestinian Authority in exchange for securing the long-term viability of the state of Israel and its largest settlements on the West Bank. Concessions include Tel Aviv’s determination to withdraw its 7,500 settlers from Gaza along with the occupation army that has been required to secure their positions. Other moves such as allowing Palestinians more freedom of movement in the occupied territories, ending the targeted assassinations of Palestinian leaders, releasing some of the political prisoners, and giving greater nominal control to the Palestinian Authority over local administration are under discussion.  
 
Tel Aviv’s West Bank land grab
While preparing the Gaza pullout, the Israeli regime remains determined to legitimize its carve-up of Palestinian territory on the West Bank and in Jerusalem through the construction of a steel and concrete wall stretching about 400 miles. Tel Aviv is using the barrier to de facto annex to Israel large portions of the West Bank. About a third of the wall has already been constructed.

The Israeli government invoked the Absentee Property Law last year to claim thousands of acres of land in Jerusalem whose owners are now prevented from farming by the construction of the “security fence.” The land grab could amount to half of all East Jerusalem property, Haaretz reported January 21.

“With the recent construction of the fence in the Jerusalem region, Palestinian landholders from Bethlehem and Beit Jala requested permission to continue working their fields, which are within Jerusalem’s municipal jurisdiction,” the Israeli daily said. “The state’s response stated that the lands ‘no longer belong to them, but have been handed over to the Custodian for Absentee Property.’ At stake are thousands of dunam [1 acre=4 dunam] of agricultural land on which Palestinians grew olives and grapes throughout the years.”

Tel Aviv also resumed construction of a particularly controversial section of the barrier deep inside Palestinian territory around the Israeli settlement Ariel in the northern West Bank near Nablus. Residents of the adjacent Palestinian town of Salfit had petitioned an Israeli court against the wall, which cuts across their land. The move came as the Palestinian Authority was negotiating a cease-fire with Hamas and other Palestinian groups, provoking a frustrated response from PA officials.

“How are we going to convince our people and factions that we are trying to end the Israeli occupation while Israel is imposing facts on the ground?” asked Palestinian Authority cabinet minister Saeb Erekat.  
 
 
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