4 PLO Officials Expelled From Gaza : Mideast: Suspected terrorists were part of Arafat’s entourage. Israel says their presence violated self-rule agreement.
JERUSALEM — Four PLO officials linked by Israeli intelligence to past terrorist attacks were expelled Wednesday from the Gaza Strip after Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin strongly protested their entry as violating the agreement on Palestinian self-government.
The four men, two of whom are believed to have planned the 1974 attack on a high school at Maalot in which 21 Israeli teen-agers were killed, entered the Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning in the entourage of Yasser Arafat, the Palestine Liberation Organization chairman. Israeli officials discovered their presence only hours later.
Mordechai Gur, Israel’s deputy defense minister, accused Arafat and the PLO of deceiving Israel in bringing the four into the Gaza Strip, knowing that Israel objected to their return.
“We cannot accept this sort of trickery,†Gur said. “I don’t have any doubt that (Arafat) knew because we made (their) names known and said we would not allow them to enter. . . . There is no doubt that Arafat knew about the matter. We do not accept this, and we will not accept it.â€
Maj. Gen. Nasser Yusuf, commander of the Palestinian police, acknowledged the four men’s entry as a violation of the agreement but said the matter is resolved.
“The four tried to get into Gaza illegally, thinking they would sneak in with Arafat,†Yusuf said by telephone. “It was illegal, but we solved the problem and it is all over.â€
For many Israelis, nervous about the character of the emerging Palestinian Authority, this was confirmation that the self-governing areas could quickly turn into a “terrorist state,†as critics of the autonomy pact have charged.
“I am shocked that the Israeli government did not arrest these murderers of children and bring them to justice,†Meir Amrusi, chairman of the Families of the Maalot Martyrs, said of the Palestinians.
Dr. Ahmed Tibi, a Jerusalem physician who advises Arafat and serves as an unofficial link for him with top Israeli officials, drove three of the men across the border into Egypt at midday. The fourth left late Wednesday.
Rabin, described as “angered and outraged†by the incident, ordered border crossings between the Gaza Strip and Egypt and between the West Bank and Jordan closed to all PLO members until the four men were sent back to Egypt. Under the autonomy agreement, Israel retained control of the crossings.
“They have to learn this lesson--they can’t cheat on the agreement they signed with us,†Rabin commented. “It is not proper for someone to smuggle these people in the cars accompanying Chairman Arafat.â€
Arafat requested a “hot line†that would provide him and Rabin with quick, direct contact in the future so such incidents do not develop and endanger relations between Israel and the new Palestinian Authority.
Tibi asserted that there had been no attempt to deceive Israel, that Arafat’s understanding was that there was a general amnesty for members of the PLO and its affiliates returning under the autonomy accord.
“You cannot come and say this man did this in the past--an agreement has been signed so that these things will not happen in the future,†Tibi said. “Those who committed these deeds now support the peace process.â€
Three of the four belong to the Palestinian Democratic Federation, a moderate PLO faction. “These people came to build up peace, and they are not coming to wage a war against Israel,†the federation said in a statement. “It is their right to return. The Israelis do not want to forget the past.â€
But Yossi Sarid, Israel’s dovish environment minister, said the amnesty could not be stretched to cover these four. “We are talking about two men who were involved in one of the most terrible and difficult events, the Maalot massacre,†Sarid said. “That is why we think they should not now be entering the self-rule areas.â€
Tibi said the four had deposited their passports with Israeli border authorities when they arrived in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday “proving there was no intention to smuggle them in†as Israeli officials contended. Israel was not acting in good faith by letting in some PLO officials and barring others, Tibi said. “This is explicitly in violation of the spirit of the agreement,†he added.
Israel also objected to the return of 13 other Palestinians who accompanied Arafat on grounds of their past activities, but agreed to allow them to remain in Gaza after all-night negotiations.
Israeli media, quoting intelligence and police sources, identified the two men involved in the Maalot attack as Mamdouh Nofal, alleged mastermind of the operation, and Nihad Jayousi. An Israeli soldier, a family of three and two Arab women as well as the three Palestinian guerrillas from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine also died in the incident.
According to press accounts, Israel also objected to the presence of Mustafa Liftawi (Abu Firas), onetime head of the PLO’s “Western Sector†intelligence group in Beirut that planned dozens of operations against Israel. The fourth was identified as Jihad Amarneh, also an official of the Western Sector.
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