1 million-plus Palestinians register to vote in election

By Mohammed Daraghmeh
The Associated Press

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The voter-registration drive launched by the Palestinian Authority last month officially ended yesterday, although officials at the Central Election Commission said 16 of its offices will remain open.

In the first days of the drive, few of the 1.8 million eligible voters turned out to register, citing frustration with official corruption and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's inability to bring an end to the conflict with Israel.

The commission embarked on a wide advertising campaign, and the Islamic Hamas called on its supporters to register in large numbers.

Hamas, the biggest opposition group, announced for the first time last month that it would participate in municipal elections. Hamas has yet to declare if it will take part in general elections.

Municipal elections are scheduled to begin Dec. 9. No date has been set for parliamentary and presidential elections.

The last Palestinian general elections were held in January 1996. Arafat has repeatedly delayed attempts to hold elections in recent years, arguing that voting would be impossible as long as Israeli troops occupy Palestinian towns and cities.

His critics charged that he was using Israeli occupation as an excuse to avoid elections at a time of growing dissatisfaction with his rule.

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Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon late yesterday ordered a troop pullout from a refugee camp, defense officials said, signaling that a two-week offensive in northern Gaza that has left more than 100 Palestinians dead could be easing. Three Israelis and a Thai farmworker have also died.
 
Missiles killed two Hamas gunmen in the sprawling urban Jebaliya refugee camp in north Gaza, stormed by more than 200 tanks and troop carriers after a Hamas rocket killed two toddlers across the border in Israel on Sept. 29.

Sharon announced that all 8,200 Jewish settlers will be pulled out of the Gaza Strip starting next summer and the operation will last 12 weeks.

After nightfall yesterday, settlers demonstrated across Israel against the settler pullout. Several thousand gathered near Sharon's Jerusalem residence.

A pro-settler rabbi called on Orthodox Jewish soldiers to refuse to obey orders to dismantle settlements.

Rabbi Avraham Shapira, once Israel's chief rabbi, said Sharon's plan violates Jewish law.

Sharon also decided yesterday not to limit the number of Muslim worshippers at a hotly disputed Jerusalem site, backing away from a threat to allow just 50,000 worshippers because the site might collapse. As many as 250,000 worshippers have thronged to the site in the past for Ramadan prayers. The holy month begins today.

The shrine is on a hilltop in Jerusalem holy to both Muslims and Jews. The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam's third-holiest site, sits atop the ruins of the biblical Jewish temples.