Thursday, February 16, 2012

PA rejects request to disarm at Joseph’s Tomb


 
Print Edition
Photo by: REUTERS
PA rejects request to disarm at Joseph’s Tomb......WE NEED TO JUST TAKE WHAT IS OURS BACK!!!!
By YAAKOV KATZ15/02/2012
10 PA officers stationed permanently at holy site; Israel also allowing PA to expand security operations in W. Bank.
 
The Palestinian Authority has rejected an Israeli request to not arm its policemen stationed at Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus with AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifles, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

Despite the rejection of the request, the IDF and PA recently reached new understandings regarding security arrangements at the holy site. 

Israel’s interest in improving coordination with PA security authorities came after the shooting last April near the tomb which killed Ben Yosef Livnat, who had entered Nablus without IDF authorization.

In recent months, the IDF and Civil Administration reached understandings with the PA which has now stationed 10 permanent police officers at the tomb, a popular site for Jewish worshippers.

The PA has also imposed strict rules of engagement to prevent future shootings against Israeli worshippers who occasionally infiltrate the city to pray at the tomb.

Due to the improvement in coordination, the IDF last week allowed a group of Jews to enter Nablus to pray at the tomb without an Israeli military convoy and under the sole supervision of PA security forces. The PA police met the group at the Huwwara checkpoint outside of Nablus and escorted the worshippers during the visit and then back.

“This was a monumental event and is a demonstration of the improvement in security coordination,” one defense source said.

The upgrade in Israeli-PA coordination at the tomb comes as peace talks between the sides remain deadlocked. Last week, PA President Mahmoud Abbas announced that he would not continue talks with Israel unless it imposed a freeze on construction in east Jerusalem and West Bank settlements.

Despite the standoff, Israel is allowing the PA to expand its security control to additional parts of the West Bank. Several weeks ago, the Central Command gave the PA permission to begin operating in the town of Sebastia near the settlement of Shavei Shomron.

Sebastia is located in Area C, which under the Oslo Accords is territory under Israeli civilian and military control. Permission for the PA to operate in Area C is extremely rare due to the close proximity to Israeli settlements.

Last month, The Post reported on an Israeli decision to ignore the establishment of two PA police stations on the outskirts of Jerusalem. The stations were established in territory marked as Area B, which according to the Oslo Accords is land under Israeli security control and Palestinian civilian control.

The police stations in the Jerusalem-borderline villages were established without Israeli government approval but the state is not demanding that the PA remove them, since it prefers not to insert its own police and military forces into the villages.


http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=257983

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