JERUSALEM: ISRAELIS THREATEN TO CLOSE NEWLY-OPENED EAST JERUSALEM PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY OFFICE

Record ID: 399824

  • Title: JERUSALEM: ISRAELIS THREATEN TO CLOSE NEWLY-OPENED EAST JERUSALEM PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY OFFICE
  • Date: 4th August 1996
  • Summary: JERUSALEM (AUGUST 4, 1996)(RTV - ACCESS ALL) JERUSALEM 1. LV ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU SEATED IN CONFERENCE ROOM IN SHERATON HOTEL 0.08 2. MV NETANYAHU SITTING WITH WIFE, SARA, IN HALL 0.11 3. LV AUDIENCE OF YOUNG AMERICAN JEWISH LEADERSHIP SITTING IN HALL 0.15 4. SLV NETANYAHU WALKING TO PODIUM, AUDIENCE APPLAUD
  • Embargoed: 19th August 1996 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: JERUSALEM
  • City:
  • Country: Israel
  • Reuters ID: LVA2WEPCIUU8BIMGSCQX197BXJY5
  • Story Text: - INTRO: Israel has vowed a Palestinian Authority office opened a few days ago in East Jerusalem will be immediately closed down. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the office contravenes the interim peace accord. Palestinians say they need an office in East Jerusalem to deal with their constituents.

    ----------------------------------------------------------- Hardline Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the office of a Palestinian legislator in Arab East Jerusalem, opened last Thursday (August 1), would be closed down on Sunday (August 4).

    Hatem Abd al-Qader opened the office on Thursday in the half of the city claimed by both Israelis and Palestinians.

    "We will not allow Jerusalem to be re-divided," Netanyahu told an audience of the Young American Jewish Leadership gathered on Sunday morning in Jerusalem.

    "The Palestinian authority made a solemn commitment to prevent the operation of any governmental activity (...) in the capital of the Jewish state," he said. "We are now witnessing, as we speak, the violation of that commitment." He added that the Israeli minister of Internal Security would close the Palestinian Authority's East Jerusalem office on Sunday and that Israel "will not tolerate breeches of our sovereignty in Jerusalem." The Palestinian legislator Hatem Abd al-Qader later told reporters he had been given 24 hours to explain the function of his office in Arab East Jerusalem.

    Israel police spokesman Eric Bar-Chen told Reuters the notice was a warning that the office would be closed by police in 24 hours if Abd al-Qader did not close it himself.

    Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it. It says it will never cede any part of the city to Palestinians. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.

    The Palestinian Authority says Israel should withdraw, and leave an open city.

    Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) official Faisal Husseini, speaking in East Jerusalem, said Israel "must withdraw from the lands that were occupied in 1967" but added the PLO does not want a Berlin Wall dividing the city.

    "We want one city with open borders and free access," Husseini said, with an Israeli capital to the East and a Palestinian capital to the West.

    The fate of the city holy to Jews, Moslems and Christians is up for negotiation in final peace talks, which have yet to resume since Netanyahu was elected in May.


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