Word: gaza
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...Prime Minister-to-be says he will respect the agreements but will give Israeli security forces "complete freedom of action" in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to combat terrorism. That would violate terms of the government-signed accords that bar Israeli forces from operating in the autonomous areas under Arafat's control, encompassing most of the Gaza Strip and six West Bank cities, unless they are in hot pursuit of a fugitive. Returning Israeli troops to areas from which they have withdrawn, even for limited operations, would set them up to clash with the 30,000 men Arafat...
Mindful of the importance of "facts on the ground," the incoming Prime Minister vowed to lift four-year-old Labor-government restrictions on new or expanded Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. When exit surveys finally began to indicate a Netanyahu victory on election night, Yaakov Katz, chairman of the settlers' offshore radio station, whooped, "Everything will change! In 10 years there will be half a million Jews in Judea and Samaria," the biblical name for the West Bank. Settlement expansion is the most incendiary issue among the Palestinians, who view the settlers as robbers...
...Shaath's well-appointed home--an incongruous sight in the midst of Gaza's rubble--one TV is tuned to CNN, another to Israeli television. Various radios blare with election news. The guests fidget and curse Peres' rival, Benjamin Netanyahu. "It's amazing," Shaath says, "for decades, each Israeli Prime Minister was as bad for us as every other. But this time our whole future is on the line. This is our election too, so of course we're all anxious--and believe me, no one is more anxious than Arafat. Given where we are with the peace process...
...Wednesday evening, the night of the Israeli elections, and the atmosphere in the Gaza City home of Nabil Shaath is quiet and tense. About a dozen people have gathered to watch the returns. Most are top aides to Yasser Arafat. Shaath, the Palestinian Authority's Minister of International Relations and Development, negotiated the complicated arrangements for the staged Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. As a member of the authority's six-member senior committee overseeing the crucial "final status" talks, he has just returned from Washington, where he and the Clinton Administration's top Middle East hands...
...have been operating on that premise for months. Just about anything that could help Peres, they have done--or more exactly not done--avoiding rhetoric and protests that could stir up unrest. In response to terrorist attacks, Peres has for the past three months prevented workers who live in Gaza and the West Bank from entering Israel, but Palestinian officials said little about it in the final weeks of the campaign. If, because of his political situation, Peres failed to live up to one of his promises, they simply ignored it. The accord Shaath brokered, for example, calls for Israelis...