Sharon eases restrictions on Palestinians

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ordered the army to ease restrictions on Palestinians amid increasing signs of popular resistance to Israel’s five-week occupation of major West Bank towns.

Israel was also scheduled to turn over around £11m (€17.4m) to the Palestinian finance minister Salam Fayed today, the first of three instalments of tax revenues it has withheld for much of the past 22 months of fighting, both sides said.

In addition, Mr Sharon ordered the army to shorten curfews, lift some roadblocks, and allowing 12,000 Palestinians to enter Israel for work, a statement from the Prime Minister’s office said.

Previously, the government had said it would issue 7,000 work permits, although it said that ultimately the number could reach 70,000. Before the conflict, some 125,000 Palestinians crossed into Israel daily for work.

The announcement came after thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank town of Nablus yesterday defied the army’s five-week curfew, filling markets and opening offices as Israeli soldiers stood by.

The organisers of the protest, the Nablus city governor, Mahmoud Alol, and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, urged residents to repeat the demonstration.

‘‘So many of our people are suffering from hunger and others couldn’t get medicine, so we have to get our rights by ourselves,’’ Mr Alol said.

The round-the-clock curfew in Nablus has only been lifted five times, for a few hours at a stretch, since Israeli troops reoccupied the city more than five weeks ago.

In the West Bank yesterday, Israeli soldiers arrested two local leaders of the militant group Hamas in Ramallah, one of whom, Hussein Abu Kweik, had been the intended target of a missile strike that instead killed his wife and three children in March, Palestinian intelligence officials said.

Israeli security sources claimed the two had been involved in recent suicide bombings.

Also in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers yesterday shot and killed an 18-year-old Palestinian as he watched an army incursion into Madra a-sharqieh, east of Ramallah, Palestinian intelligence officials said. Israeli security sources said soldiers fired at two men who were throwing concrete blocks at them.

The violence followed a clash between Jewish settlers and Palestinians during a funeral procession for a Israeli soldier killed in the volatile West Bank city of Hebron. A 14-year-old Palestinian girl was killed and several Palestinians wounded, witnesses said.

The Palestinians, though confined to their homes by an army-imposed curfew, began throwing stones at the funeral procession, according to photographers at the scene.

The armed settlers responded, firing shots and using metal bars and stones to smash windows of Palestinian-owned cars and homes in Hebron’s Old City, residents said.

Palestinian Nizin Jamjoum, 14, was standing on the balcony of her home when she was fatally shot in the head, said her brother Marwan, 26, who was injured. At least six Palestinians were hurt, doctors at the city’s Alia Hospital said.

The injured included eight-year-old Ahmed Natcha, who was stabbed when a group of settlers broke into his home and smashed furniture, said the boy’s father, Hussain Natcha. The boy was in stable condition.

The army said it was aware of only one injured Palestinian, and that he had received treatment from troops.