According to The Jerusalem Post, Defense Minister Ehud Barak is set to tell Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad at a meeting in Ramallah on Wednesday that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will allow Palestinian police to be deployed in Jenin.
It said the Palestinian police force would move into the West Bank town after they complete their training in Jordan under a U.S.-funded program. On Friday, a Defense Ministry spokesman announced that Israel had agreed to let Russia deliver 25 armored vehicles to Palestinian security forces in the West Bank.
The armed Palestinian police will be charged with maintaining order in the town during the day, but the IDF will retain overall security control and will continue to operate in the town during the night hours.
"It is clear to us all that we must exhaust all possible ways of assisting the negotiations with the Palestinians," Barak said on Tuesday. "We must ease restrictions on the Palestinians whenever it does not conflict with [Israel's] defense, even at the price of a calculated risk."
Palestinian officials in the West Bank have said however that in their opinion Jenin does not require extra forces, and have criticized Israel for failing to back Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his struggle against hard-line Islamic group Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since last June. They have also said that the decision on where to deploy the Jordan-trained forces does not rest with Israel.
The paper said Barak was considering a series of gestures aimed at easing restrictions in the West Bank ahead of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Israel next week. These are said to include lifting a number of temporary roadblocks, opening a VIP lane at checkpoints, and exempting Palestinian businessmen approved by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) from inspections.
