"Gaza, Bethlehem First" lasted a day before it was blocked by Israeli military actions. It will remain blocked until outside pressure is applied, writes Graham Usher in Jerusalem Click to view caption As so often in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the smallest step forward has been met with several steps back, most (though not all) driven by Israel's propensity to wield military solutions in what has to be a political process. On Sunday Israel and the Palestinian Authority agreed finally to implement "Gaza, Bethlehem First". Marketed by Israel's Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, the scheme has the most minimal of aims. In return for PA police forces making efforts to "reduce terror and violence" Israel will relax its military and economic grip on the two Palestinian areas. "The main idea is to achieve a cease-fire and for tensions and all the violence to abate," said Ben-Eliezer. Initial signs were encouraging. The army lifted the curfews in Bethlehem for the first time in two months and withdrew armoured patrols from the town centre. Palestinian police officers mustered beside wrecked PA security offices and started to take up duties, mostly civilian. "It's a step forward," said Bethlehem mayor, Hanna Nasser. But he pointed out that the army had only moved "500 metres" to the outskirts and that the blockade on the city remained as tight as ever. Without Israel's alleviation of the closure he knows the relief of Bethlehem's 46,000 inhabitants can only be temporary. In Gaza there wasn't even that. On Tuesday a Hamas guerrilla shot and killed an Israeli soldier guarding a settlement next to Khan Yunis. Hamas said this was in reprisal for the army's assassination last week of one of their men. Israel's response was predictable and utterly disproportionate. It shelled the Palestinian residential area from which the guerrilla fired, killing a 15- year old Palestinian boy. The next morning 20 Israeli tanks -- backed by helicopters -- invaded an area of Khan Yunis refugee camp, destroying with explosives two Palestinian houses. These brought down others, including one housing Palestinians. One man was killed under the debris and six wounded. Outside Bethlehem there was no let up in the West Bank either. On Tuesday a large force of Israeli soldiers and armour swept into Tulkarm refugee camp, arresting 15 Palestinians and killing an activist from Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. Later that day an Israeli undercover squad entered Ramallah, attempting to arrest Mohamed Saadat, an activist in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Cornered in an alley Saadat fired back and was killed in the shoot-out. Mohamed was the brother of Ahmed Saadat, the PFLP leader currently detained under British and American supervision in a Jericho jail on charges of planning the assassination of Israeli cabinet minister, Rehavam Zeevi. The PFLP threatened retaliation was as predictable as Israel's. "Our response will be painful and deterrent. They [the Israelis] experienced our response after the assassination of the [PFLP's] General Secretary Abu Ali Mustafa," said Rabah Muhanna, PFLP political leader in Gaza. Zeevi had been slain in revenge for Abu Ali Mustafa's death. All of the Palestinian factions have come down against "Gaza, Bethlehem First", including Fatah and its armed wing, the Al- Aqsa Brigades. It has been denounced as a "partial, security" solution that serves only to consolidate Israel's re-occupation of six West Bank cities or as a ruse to buy "quiet" in the occupied territories in anticipation of an American strike on Iraq. The factions' rejection is important since the PA will require the active backing of Fatah and at least tacit compliance from Hamas and the PFLP if any cease-fire is to hold. From such quiet, the PA's hope is that international pressure will be exerted on Israel to lift the blockades in Gaza and the West Bank and end the punitive policies of incursion, house demolitions and assassination. Without this, "Gaza, Bethlehem First" will go nowhere. This at least is the case the PA delegation will be making in Paris when it meets with the so-called "Task Force", a grouping of countries and donours mandated to oversee the Palestinian reform programme. It remains to be seen whether the world will heed its call -- or whether the factions will heed their own.
