An Israeli army tank drives near the entrance to the remaining building of Arafat’s besieged headquarters in Ramallah

OCCUPIED NABLUS, West Bank, September 29 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Israeli government has decided Sunday, September 29, to relax the siege of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Ramallah headquarters but to keep troops in the area to ensure wanted men inside do not escape, one day after it assassinated a leader of a Palestinian resistance group.

Israeli radio said the decision, taken in a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and chief of staff General Moshe Yaalon, could be implemented later Sunday.

An Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent outside the Ramallah headquarters, which have been under siege for 10 days, said there had been no movement on the ground and that the building was still surrounded by 10 Israeli armored vehicles, mostly tanks.

Public radio said the government, under heavy pressure from Washington to lift the siege in line with a U.N. resolution, would be taking a decision later in the day.

Sharon, who is due to leave later on a trip to Moscow , would be meeting his cabinet chief Dov Weisglass, who has just had talks in Washington with US national security adviser Condoleeza Rice.

The Bush administration wants Sharon to apply Security Council resolution 1435 calling for an immediate lifting of the blockade on Arafat’s headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah .

It fears that his continued refusal to conform until some 20 wanted militants holed up with Arafat surrender to Israel is damaging U.S. efforts to obtain support for an attack on Iraq .

The radio gave no further details as to how far back the troops would move.
Ben Eliezer, quoted on public radio earlier, said he favored a similar solution to that which ended a siege by Israeli troops of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in May.

That standoff ended with a deal under which 13 Palestinian resistance fighters were exiled to foreign countries, a move that cause significant political damage to Arafat.

Meanwhile, a leader of the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was assassinated late Saturday, September 28, in the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem as he was handling an explosive device, Palestinian security sources said.

Kader Diab, 24, a local chief of the Ali Mustapha Brigades, had been wanted by Israeli forces, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The armed wing was named after the former head of the PFLP, Ali Abu Mustapha, who was assassinated in an Israeli helicopter strike in August last year.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army has shut its main security liaison office with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security sources said Saturday night.

The army shut the Palestinian offices in the northern Gaza Strip by the border town of Beit Hanun Thursday, September 26, and confiscated the Palestinian officers’ weapons, the sources said.

The office was on the same property as Israeli military offices and had been in operation since 1994 as a result of the Oslo peace accords that inaugurated Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Israeli army refused to comment on whether the office had been shutdown.

During the demonstrations which took place in Gaza on Saturday to mark the second anniversary of the intifada, the Israeli army clashed with demonstrators and a teenager was killed.

Mohammad Abu Ajwa, 17, was killed when a group of Palestinian youths, who had just attended a commemorative demonstration in the Gaza Strip town of Deir el-Balah, clashed with Israeli soldiers manning a position near the adjacent Jewish settlement of Netzarim, Palestinian security sources said.

Three more Palestinians were wounded in the same incident, while similar clashes left seven youths hurt near Beit Lahia and three in Khan Yunis following a 3,000-strong demonstration, official Palestinian sources said.

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