Netanyahu Tries To Avoid Split Palestinians Express Hope Of New Year’s Day Deal On Hebron

As Palestinian and Israeli negotiators pressed on Thursday with efforts to hammer out an agreement on the West Bank city of Hebron by next week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel kept up pressure on wavering ministers in his Cabinet to prevent the deal from splitting his government.

Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, reported on the Hebron talks to the Palestinian legislative council, and some lawmakers said later that an agreement could be expected by New Year’s Day.

A signing would be followed by a swift pullback of Israeli troops from most of Hebron, a city of 160,000 Palestinians, to positions around four enclaves of about 450 Jewish settlers and the Tomb of the Patriarchs shrine, which is holy to Jews and Muslims.

Hebron is the last West Bank city still under Israeli occupation, and tensions remained high there on Thursday in expectation of a withdrawal. A firebomb was hurled at a building housing Jewish settlers but caused no casualties - the seventh such attack this week.

Buoyed by the mediation efforts of Dennis Ross, the Clinton administration’s special coordinator for the Middle East, Israeli and Palestinian officials predicted an agreement within days. Ross returned to Washington and reported Thursday on the talks to President Clinton, and is expected back here on Monday to help conclude the negotiations.

Palestinian legislators said that Arafat reported that the Hebron agreement would be accompanied by Israeli commitments, guaranteed by the Americans, to carry out further provisions of the Israeli-Palestinian accords of 1995. These include additional withdrawals in rural areas of the West Bank in six weeks.

Many settlers and their supporters say they have been bitterly disappointed by Netanyahu.

Prominent among these critics is Hagi Ben-Artzi, Netanyahu’s brother-in-law, who moved to Hebron recently to show his support for the settlers there.