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Israel lifts closure

on PLO-ruled Jericho

JERUSALEM: Israel lifted the closure on PLO-ruled Jericho in the West Bank on Wednesday imposed after last week's suicide bombing that killed five people, the army said.

Hundreds of Palestinians left the self-rule enclave early in the morning for work in Israel, witnesses said.

Security sources had said Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin decided on the closure last Wednesday to pressure the PLO to hand over two members of the Islamic militant Hamas group which Israel said helped plan the Jerusalem bus bombing on August 21.

Palestinian officials refused to surrender the two but jailed them in Jericho for "security offences".

Since then, both Israel and the PLO have cracked down on Hamas, which spearheads opposition to Israel-PLO peace moves.

Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, another militant group, have killed more than 80 Israelis and tourists in suicide attacks since the landmark 1993 Israel-PLO peace deal that launched Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and Jericho.

Israel arrested dozens of Hamas militants and killed two in a shootout on Friday. Security officials said suicide bombings were thwarted.

Palestinian security officials said they arrested more than 30 militants in Gaza on Tuesday including a guerrilla who was on his way to carrying out a suicide attack in Jerusalem.

Israeli security sources said Palestinian troops had made the arrests while searching for Yahya Ayyash, dubbed "The Engineer", a Hamas militant thought to have planned many of the suicide attacks against Israel.

Israel and the PLO are in the final stages of negotiations on the long overdue expansion of Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank.-Reuter