Arafat Orders Arrests; Israel Vows Expansion

NABLUS, West Bank — Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat ordered the arrests of 20 suspected Islamic militants Wednesday and tightened security around imprisoned Hamas activists after Israeli accusations that four men responsible for recent suicide bombings had walked out of a Palestinian jail.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, said Israel will continue expanding Jewish settlements--a move sure to anger the Palestinians and irritate the U.S., which had asked Israel for a temporary halt in settlement building.

Speaking Wednesday in the West Bank settlement of Efrat, Netanyahu said construction will begin soon on 300 new apartments there.

“We are building both in Efrat and in Judea and Samaria,” he said, using the biblical name for the West Bank. “The land of Israel is being built in front of our eyes, and that’s a good thing.”

Earlier this month, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had asked for a “time-out” in Israeli settlement building in order to help get the peace process back on track. Netanyahu’s government rejected that request, saying there could be no movement in the peace process until Palestinians did more to fight terrorism.

At the United Nations, State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said Albright believes that the expansion of the settlement will damage “the climate she had hoped would be created for negotiations.”

Rubin said Albright spoke by telephone with Netanyahu on Wednesday, but the Israeli premier did not mention his plans for Efrat. He said Albright learned of the expansion from news accounts.

Meanwhile, none of the militants detained by the Palestinians in the West Bank city of Nablus on Wednesday were on Israel’s wanted list. The arrests came a day after Israel identified four suicide bombers from two recent attacks in Jerusalem as Hamas activists from the village of Assira Shamaliya, near Nablus. The July 30 and Sept. 4 attacks killed 25 people.

The Israeli announcement deeply embarrassed Arafat. The four had walked out of a loosely guarded Palestinian jail in Nablus last year, and their names were on a list of 88 Islamic militants Israel had given the Palestinian Authority with the demand they be arrested.

Also Wednesday, Israel eased the closure it imposed on the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the wake of the bombings. An army spokesman said 4,000 more Palestinian workers will be allowed to travel to their jobs in Israel, bringing the total number of Palestinian workers allowed into Israel to 21,000.

Before the closure, about 100,000 Palestinians were working in Israel.