JERICHO, West Bank — The sudden whirring of a slot machine pierces what had been four years of silence here at the Oasis Casino. The commotion, caused by a maintenance check, is a ghostly reminder of the hordes of Israelis who once frequented this sleepy Palestinian town.

The casino on the outskirts of Jericho once was the biggest private employer in the West Bank and Gaza. But fighting that erupted in September 2000 and the Israeli military's sealing off towns such as this soon forced the Oasis to close.

In the first month of fighting, Palestinian gunmen took up positions in parking lots on the perimeter of the casino to fire on the nearby Israeli military-liaison office and Jewish settlement. The army responded with tank and helicopter fire that shattered the casino's tinted-glass entryway facade.

"We were just caught in the middle," said Hans Holek, the casino's security chief.

No answers yet

Now, with a fragile truce taking hold and talk of Israel transferring security authority in Jericho to the Palestinians, the casino's management is receiving inquiries from laid-off staff members and former patrons about a reopening date.

Oasis manager Brett Anderson doesn't have any answers — yet.

"We're entirely in someone else's hands," said Anderson, an employee of Casinos Austria, the Oasis' management company. "It will be up to the governments."

Slot machines sit unattended in the Oasis Casino in Jericho. The casino was once the biggest private employer in the West Bank and Gaza and drew 3,000 players a night.

Talks on the handover of West Bank cities broke down last week over an Israeli demand to maintain the main roadblock that Palestinians want dismantled outside Jericho. Before that, the talks had been suspended following a suicide bombing that killed five people on the Tel Aviv beachfront in February.

Even if the military opens its checkpoint down the road from the casino, the job prospects of 1,600 Palestinian staff members will depend on whether Israel lifts a ban on visits by its citizens to West Bank cities.

However, a spokeswoman for the Israeli Defense Ministry said that allowing its citizens to enter Palestinian towns is not on the agenda of the current talks.

The Oasis' predicament illustrates how, despite the emerging détente, the Palestinian economy remains fractured from the fighting of the past four years.

Improvements crucial

Improving the standard of living, observers say, is critical to improving stability and strengthening support for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to make concessions for peace with Israel.

"I can say with confidence that an impoverished society on the doorstep of a prosperous society is very dangerous for the prosperous society and its security," said Nigel Roberts, representative of the World Bank in the West Bank and Gaza. "This is increasingly understood in Israel."

Over the past four years, military checkpoints and blockades have made movement of goods and workers unpredictable in the Palestinian territories, forcing transportation costs up and wrecking the Palestinian economy.

Incomes dropped by nearly half. In 2004, unemployment topped 31 percent. And at the end of last year, 48 percent of Palestinians were living under the poverty line of $2.10 a day, according to a World Bank estimate.

Since the joint declaration of a truce in Israeli-Palestinian fighting last month, few if any roadblocks have been lifted, according to the Israeli human-rights watchdog B'tselem.

Lifting restrictions on routes into and out of Palestinian cities would be the swiftest way to ease hardship in the West Bank and Gaza while promoting business expansion, experts said.

"People have good expectations in terms of the economy," said Iyad Judeh, former director of the Palestinian trade center, Paltrade. "At the end of the day, people need to feel the change, not only through the media, but through their income."

Opened in 1998, the Oasis once attracted 3,000 players a night, most of them from Israel, where casinos are illegal. The Oasis catered to them with Hebrew-language menus and chartered buses from Tel Aviv.

The casino's closing rippled throughout Jericho, a town of nearly 20,000 that has tried to build a tourism industry on its proximity to the Dead Sea and the Jordan River. Local food suppliers lost an important client, and landlords saw rental demand vanish when casino workers left.

Hazzem Hejazy used to work as a dealer at the Oasis, a job that earned him a monthly salary of $1,000 plus tips. Working now in a barbershop in the town square here, Hejazy is lucky to be employed, earning less than half his Oasis salary.

"It makes us want to cry," said Jericho Mayor Hassan Saleh. "You cannot separate politics from economics. The Palestinian side would like to make this city open for all the populations in the area."

At the Oasis, the game room is still aglow and the front windows have been repaired.

"You want to improve the economic situation of the Palestinians?" Anderson says. "Reopening this place would be one good way of doing that."

Reforms needed

Israeli security concessions alone will not guarantee Palestinian prosperity, say Paltrade's Iyad and Roberts of the World Bank. To attract foreign investors, the Palestinian government must adopt a host of economic reforms as well as strengthen the legal system.

"Everybody is starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel," said Munzer Izhiman, financial controller at the Jericho Inter-Continental, a high-rise hotel built alongside the casino.

Having opened just weeks before the outbreak of the violence, the hotel has continued to function despite a nearly complete dearth of guests. The hotel's lobby and rooms have been kept gleaming for four years in anticipation of an end to the violence. But Izhiman knows it will take time before the guests return.

"It's not a matter of day and night. You don't say peace is on and everybody will come."

Material from Reuters is included in this report.