JERUSALEM, Jan. 15 -- Israel's cabinet agreed Sunday to allow Palestinians in East Jerusalem to vote in their parliamentary elections this month, but under a plan that prohibits members of the radical Islamic party Hamas from entering the city to campaign.
The decision marked the first significant policy shift under the acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who agreed to allow the voting under pressure from the Bush administration. But Palestinian officials said the plan did not resolve several issues that could affect voter participation, leaving the elections in some doubt.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war, and Israelis and Palestinians both claim Jerusalem as their capital. Whether to allow Palestinian residents of the city to cast ballots in the Jan. 25 parliamentary elections, the first in a decade, has been a decision of symbolic and practical importance to both sides.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, now fighting for his life in a hospital here, banned voting inside the city because of the participation of Hamas, formally known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, which is competing in national elections for the first time. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, whose governing Fatah party is facing a stiff challenge from Hamas, vowed to cancel the elections unless Israel allowed voting in East Jerusalem.
The plan approved Sunday would allow some of the estimated 120,000 Palestinians eligible to vote in East Jerusalem to cast ballots at five designated post offices. Palestinian officials said they expected roughly 6,000 voters to do so.
The rest would cast ballots at polling stations outside the municipal boundaries. These are the same procedures used in the 1996 and 2005 Palestinian national elections. But Palestinian officials said Israel had not guaranteed free passage for Palestinian residents of Jerusalem assigned to vote in the West Bank. The Israeli military often closes access to the West Bank during times of potential strife.
‘Voting outside the city will be severely restricted,’ said a Palestinian official involved in the issue, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly on the subject. ‘If we're going to have Israeli participation in Palestinian democracy to some measure, we need some statement from them on this. The environment is still far from conducive in encouraging Palestinians to go out and vote.’
The rules governing previous Palestinian elections prohibited the participation of parties that Israel classifies as terrorist organizations, including Hamas. It remained unclear Sunday whether Israel would allow candidates from Hamas, a party at war with Israel, to appear on ballots in the city. An Israeli Foreign Ministry official said the issue would likely be decided as the cabinet decision is implemented on the ground.
In comments before the cabinet meeting, Olmert emphasized that ‘Israel will not allow Hamas entry into Jerusalem, including the carrying out of election propaganda.’
Olmert, a former two-term mayor of Jerusalem, added, ‘This position has been made clear to all in recent days, and it is unequivocal.’
Soon after the cabinet vote, Israeli police detained three Hamas candidates campaigning in East Jerusalem. Israeli authorities said the men, including Mohammed Abu Tir, who occupies the second slot on Hamas's national list, were convening unauthorized political rallies.
Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said the cabinet decision raised the chances that parliamentary elections would proceed as planned. But he said all candidates should understand the special rules governing campaigning in East Jerusalem.
Election material bearing anti-Israel symbols or language inciting violence is banned inside the city, and candidates must seek Israeli permission at least 24 hours in advance to hold rallies. In the past week, more than a dozen Palestinian candidates and activists have been detained by Israeli authorities for allegedly violating those regulations.
Olmert's proposal was approved unanimously by a cabinet now largely free of political rivals. Last week, three of four ministers from the hawkish Likud Party resigned at the direction of the party's new leader, Binyamin Netanyahu.
The move was a tactical decision in advance of Israeli elections scheduled for March 28. The fourth Likud cabinet member, Silvan Shalom, resigned as foreign minister Sunday as expected.
Also Sunday, Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian woman and her adult son after coming under fire in a village near the West Bank city of Nablus, the Israeli military said. Three other Palestinians were wounded.
Israeli troops were operating in the village before dawn when they were shot at from inside a house, an Israeli military official said. After an exchange of fire, the troops entered the home and found the woman and man dead.
But Palestinians from the village said Israeli soldiers staged the raid on the home, which had recently been vandalized in a local dispute, before any shots were fired. They identified the dead as Nawal Dwekat, 50, and her 20-year-old son, Fawzi, who had been standing guard with a gun outside the house. Soldiers found several rifles, ammunition and spent cartridges inside the house, the Israeli military official said.