Jul 3, 2002 4 min read

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) – Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Tuesday fired his West Bank security chief and the Gaza police chief, officials said, in a major step toward reforming his security services. West Bank Preventive Security Chief Jibril Rajoub told The Associated Press that he had been informed of Arafat’s decision.

However, Gaza police chief Ghazi Jibali insisted the reports were “rumors.”

Rajoub is one of the most powerful figures in the West Bank but has had a falling out with Arafat. During a previous incursion into the West Bank, Israeli forces destroyed Rajoub’s headquarters. He ordered the men inside to surrender, forcing them to lose face among many Palestinians.

Arafat has been under pressure to reform his security services. Israel and the United States have insisted that he must streamline the agencies and turn them toward preventing terror attacks against Israel.

When he reshuffled his Cabinet last month, Arafat named Gen. Abdel Razak Yihiyeh as interior minister in charge of the security services, a post Arafat had held before.

After briefly lifting a curfew to allow students in the West Bank city of Hebron take exams, Israeli soldiers stormed a college campus Tuesday, detaining 300 Palestinians for questioning.

Since back-to-back suicide bombing attacks in Jerusalem that killed 26 Israelis last month, Israeli forces have taken control of seven of the eight main Palestinian cities and towns.

After declaring curfews that have confined at least 700,000 people to their homes, the forces have gone in to search for suspects.

Hundreds of Palestinians have also been detained for questioning and about 60 are still being held, military sources said Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity. That was far fewer than the number detained during a six-week offensive that ended in May – and which failed to stop Palestinian suicide bombings.

At least 2,000 Israeli reserve troops have been called up for the security operations.

“We hope once we are able to subdue terrorism … it will be possible to renew the political process … and allow the Palestinian people to return to normal life, which definitely they do deserve,” said Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

In the Hebron raid, soldiers entered the Palestinian Polytechnic Institute and ordered the men and women into separate yards where they checked IDs and questioned students, witnesses said.

At least seven students were taken away and a number of the students were blindfolded, they said.

The military said a Palestinian on Israel’s suspect list was arrested at the university, and five other Palestinians later were arrested in Hebron. In the past, Israel has singled out West Bank universities, calling them hotbeds of terrorism.

Israeli soldiers, meanwhile, re-entered the West Bank town of Qalqiliya, residents said, just hours after pulling out and redeploying at the edge of the town. The military said three Palestinians were arrested, including two who were planning suicide bombing missions.

The round-the-clock curfew was lifted for several hours Tuesday in Bethlehem but remained in place in other areas.

Since the military clamped down on West Bank towns 12 days ago and imposed curfews, no Israelis have been killed by Palestinians but 15 Palestinians have died in clashes.

During the earlier Israeli incursion, starting March 29, more than 200 Palestinians were killed, along with 28 Israelis.

In the southern Gaza Strip, along the border with Egypt, Israeli forces found and destroyed a tunnel intended for smuggling weapons, the army said, adding that several such tunnels had been found recently.

At a convention in Tel Aviv, the Israeli Labor Party, a partner in Sharon’s coalition government, debated plans to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

The party leader, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, told party activists that their main challenge was to restore credibility among the voters.

The dovish Labor Party, traditional leader of the Israeli camp that favors concessions to the Palestinians in exchange for peace, has taken a beating in the polls as a result of 21 months of bloody Palestinian-Israeli violence after peace talks broke down.

At Israel’s international airport outside Tel Aviv, Israeli authorities refused entry to a group of 18 Americans that arrived to express support for the Palestinians.

The U.S. group included naturalized citizens born in Pakistan, Egypt and Iraq, said Interior Ministry spokeswoman Tova Ellinson. Two members of the U.S. group were admitted entry because they have Israeli citizenship. A British citizen traveling with the Americans was put on a flight back home.

“They wanted to show solidarity with the Palestinians,” she said. “The state of Israel is in a state of war at the moment and no other country would allow its enemies or those who support its enemies to enter.”