Ouja is a village just to the north of Jericho, and the dispute over Ouja has held up today's scheduled transfer of Jericho and environs to PA control.
Until now, IDF officers have been unwilling to withdraw their control from Ouja, as Highway 90, the north-south highway from northern Israel to Eilat passes right through it. When the Oslo War started, Arabs from Ouja in fact set up roadblocks and attacked Jewish travelers on the highway on a nightly basis.
Erekat, however, said today that Prime Minister Sharon's top aide and negotiator, Dov Weisglass, had agreed, in Israel's name, to the PA's demand for Ouja. Israeli officials said they knew nothing of this concession, although other Israeli sources said that the delay in handing over Jericho was merely temporary.
Jericho is the first of five PA-area cities to be handed over to the PA in the coming days and weeks.
Another issue in dispute was the number of IDF checkpoints that are to remain around the Jericho area. When Jericho was originally handed over to the PA in 1994, it was connected by a narrow, 5.5-kilometer long strip of land, which was later expanded to nearly a half-kilometer in width just several months before the Oslo War broke out in 2000. The strip almost totally isolates the community of Naama and its 25 families: Ouja to the north, Jericho to the south, the strip on the west, and the Jordan River and Jordanian border to the east.
Aryeh, Naamah's security coordinator, says he is not worried. "We've always traveled through Ouja," he told Arutz-7's Yosef Meiri today, "and we'll continue to do so. At worst, if people are afraid to travel, there is an unused bypass road around Ouja which, I assume, can be re-opened."
Many in the PA are looking forward to the re-opening of the Oasis Casino in Jericho, which made a profit of $54 million in 1999. An average of close to 2,900 people visited the casino daily before it closed due to the Oslo War – 99% of them Israelis.
Interior Minister Ofir Pines-Paz of Labor has called on Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz not to permit the reopening of the casino. Pines-Paz said that allowing the casino to open would not reflect a “normalization or a fitting gesture, but rather an unfitting move that will harm the current process."
The Oasis Casino is partly owned by Casino Austria, a company partially owned by the Austrian government that is controlled by Martin Schlaff, a close associate of PM Sharon, and by Arafat-crony Mohammed Rashid.
Until now, IDF officers have been unwilling to withdraw their control from Ouja, as Highway 90, the north-south highway from northern Israel to Eilat passes right through it. When the Oslo War started, Arabs from Ouja in fact set up roadblocks and attacked Jewish travelers on the highway on a nightly basis.
Erekat, however, said today that Prime Minister Sharon's top aide and negotiator, Dov Weisglass, had agreed, in Israel's name, to the PA's demand for Ouja. Israeli officials said they knew nothing of this concession, although other Israeli sources said that the delay in handing over Jericho was merely temporary.
Jericho is the first of five PA-area cities to be handed over to the PA in the coming days and weeks.
Another issue in dispute was the number of IDF checkpoints that are to remain around the Jericho area. When Jericho was originally handed over to the PA in 1994, it was connected by a narrow, 5.5-kilometer long strip of land, which was later expanded to nearly a half-kilometer in width just several months before the Oslo War broke out in 2000. The strip almost totally isolates the community of Naama and its 25 families: Ouja to the north, Jericho to the south, the strip on the west, and the Jordan River and Jordanian border to the east.
Aryeh, Naamah's security coordinator, says he is not worried. "We've always traveled through Ouja," he told Arutz-7's Yosef Meiri today, "and we'll continue to do so. At worst, if people are afraid to travel, there is an unused bypass road around Ouja which, I assume, can be re-opened."
Many in the PA are looking forward to the re-opening of the Oasis Casino in Jericho, which made a profit of $54 million in 1999. An average of close to 2,900 people visited the casino daily before it closed due to the Oslo War – 99% of them Israelis.
Interior Minister Ofir Pines-Paz of Labor has called on Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz not to permit the reopening of the casino. Pines-Paz said that allowing the casino to open would not reflect a “normalization or a fitting gesture, but rather an unfitting move that will harm the current process."
The Oasis Casino is partly owned by Casino Austria, a company partially owned by the Austrian government that is controlled by Martin Schlaff, a close associate of PM Sharon, and by Arafat-crony Mohammed Rashid.