Travel to Palestinian-controlled areas restricted after firebombings

Jack Katzenell

Sunday, May 21, 2000 | 10:47 a.m.

JERUSALEM - Israel on Sunday ordered its citizens and foreign tourists to stay out of Palestinian-controlled areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip after an Israeli toddler was badly burned by a firebomb hurled at the car in which she was riding.

The army said its order forbidding travel to so-called Area A - territory under full Palestinian security control - was due to the weeklong surge of violence in the territories that has left four Palestinians dead and hundreds injured.

The firebombing early Sunday in the West Bank town of Jericho, which injured the 2-year-old girl, her mother and another woman passenger, was one of about 8 such attacks overnight on Israeli vehicles in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the army said. No other injuries were reported.

On Saturday, as riots raged throughout the West Bank and Gaza, more than 40 firebombs were thrown at Israeli vehicles, the army said.

The burned girl was in intensive care on life support, said a spokeswoman at Jerusalem's Hadassah hospital. The girl's brother, also in the car, was not hurt.

Jericho, which is usually the quietest of the Palestinian cities, was unaffected until now by the violence that has swept other major West Bank towns including Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron.

Prime Minister Ehud Barak has canceled his planned visit to the United States as a result of the violence in the Palestinian areas, plus heavy fighting in south Lebanon between Israeli troops and Hezbollah guerrillas. Israeli troops are to withdraw from south Lebanon by a self-imposed deadline of July 7.

Despite tensions, Israel's security cabinet decided on Saturday night that the peace negotiations in Stockholm between Israel and the Palestinians should not be affected by the surge of violence.

An eighth day of clashes was feared Sunday after the funeral in Ramallah of a Palestinian man who died after being shot in the head by Israeli troops on Friday. He was identified as 28-year-old Issa Abed, a cafeteria worker.

By Saturday evening, shops and restaurants of Ramallah had shut down as the town began an official mourning for Abed. His death brought to four the number of Palestinians killed in a week of clashes, including several gunbattles, between Israelis and Palestinians.

The violence comes as Israel and the Palestinians are working on a final peace treaty to settle long-standing issues like the nature of a Palestinian state, the future of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees. The Palestinians want to set up a state with traditionally Arab east Jerusalem as the capital. They insist that refugees who fled Israel when it was created in 1948 have the right to return.

The sides have set a September deadline for a final treaty, but negotiations have progressed slowly.

The rioting, the worst in years in the Palestinian lands, began last Sunday when Palestinians took to the streets to press demands for the release of 1,650 prisoners held by Israel for anti-Israeli attacks.