An Israeli soldier checking the papers of people entering Israel

October 2, 1999
Web posted at: 10:01 p.m. EDT (0201 GMT)

In this story: Many Palestinians remain skeptical New relationship promised RELATED STORIES, SITES

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli officials said they would postpone Sunday's planned opening of a safe passage route for Palestinians between the West Bank and Gaza after negotiators failed to resolve a security dispute.

"The two parties agreed to resume talks in the next few days in order to find solutions for outstanding issues," Israel's Public Security Ministry said.

"At this stage, the passage will not be opened," a ministry statement said. On Friday, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Barak had said that Israel would make the route operational on Sunday.

The opening of the first route, part of the Wye River land- for-security peace accord, would allow Palestinians to drive east across Israel from the Gaza Strip on the Mediterranean coast to the West Bank.

It is meant to answer years of complaints that Israeli measures prevent Palestinians in the separate self-rule areas from seeing friends and family.

Negotiating teams met near Jerusalem for five hours on Saturday in an attempt to settle a dispute over magnetic cards that Israel wants to issue to monitor travelers.

Palestinians want to be in charge of distributing the cards and also want stronger guarantees from Israel that it will not turn the transit route into an "ambush ground" to arrest Palestinians on its wanted list.

The Israeli ministry's statement quoted Public Security Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami as expressing "confidence that in the next few days an understanding will be reached safeguarding basic (Israeli) principles: Security and sovereignty."

Palestinian negotiators were not immediately available for comment.

Many Palestinians remain skeptical

Many Palestinians remained skeptical about the negotiations even before they broke down.

"If the safe passage is going to be in the hands of the Israelis, you have doubts," said university student Beir Zeit in Tarkumiya on the West Bank, not far from Bethlehem. "The word 'safe passage' makes me laugh all the time.

"Every time I hear safe passage, I find it very humorous, because there is no safe passage."

When Palestinian students defied Israeli bans to attend Israeli universities, the results have been divided families.

When a relative died, there were two choices -- remain on campus or risk arrest by Israeli authorities to attend the funeral.

"My mother was dead when I was here (on campus) and I didn't see her," one student said.

New relationship promised

According to Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh, that policy is on the verge of change.

"We will take only those actions which are needed to the security of the Israelis," Sneh said before the talks stalled.

While the phrase "security of the Israelis" worries some Palestinians, the deputy defense minister said the goal is to ease relations.

"We didn't order safe passage in order to trap people and in order to arrest them," he said. "We are going to change the reality and change the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians."

CNN Jerusalem Bureau Chief Walter Rodgers and Reuters contributed to this report.

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