Palestinians ready for the start of a new era of self-rule found their expectations dimmed Thursday when the machinery for transferring power ground forward at a snail's pace.
The anticipated end of nearly 27 years of Israeli occupation was coming more slowly than expected, largely because Palestinian police and other administrative bodies were not in place. PLO chairman Yasser Arafat asked Israel for at least four weeks to complete the transfer.The mood outside the installations, where Israeli troops were still stationed, swung from quiet discussions between soldiers and Palestinians about the impending withdrawal to rock-throwing by both sides.
Reports the Palestinians would take over one building Thursday on the Gaza waterfront failed to materialize, and the crowd waiting got a little surly.
"It's a symbolic gesture only - that won't change the quality of our life," said Rayid Kaour, a 21-year-old student from Beach Refugee Camp. "We don't want the first step. We want the following step."
At the complex housing the military headquarters and the jail, officers said the last prisoners left at 7 a.m. but would not specify who they were or how many.
Soldiers outside - one with "No one gets out of here alive" written on his bulletproof vest - chatted with Palestinians through the chain-link fence.
One Palestinian asked a soldier in Hebrew, "When are you leaving?" The soldier answered, "You have to ask the PLO, but for now it belongs to us."
Palestinian youths hurled stones at a truck removing an electrical generator and lobbed rocks inside the fenced compound. Soldiers threw back brick-size chunks of rock and asphalt.
The Israel-Palestinian liaison committee met to begin working out a timetable for the transfer of army installations to the Palestinian police, but no immediate handovers were scheduled.
Israeli officials said they wanted to withdraw the soldiers from the Gaza Strip and West Bank region of Jericho within 10 days but would accede to Palestinian requests for more time.
In Cairo, Egypt, Nabil Shaath, the chief PLO negotiator, said that 6,000 Palestinian police officers would be deployed in Gaza and Jericho by the time Israel completes its withdrawal.
His comments appeared aimed at countering the Israeli contention that the Palestinians were not ready to take control.
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, meanwhile, said that Israel would consider calls for further discussion of the issue of the size of Jericho and the police presence at the actual borders, but he considered the agreement final.
"What they are asked for is that there will be a possibility to discuss this further. But we have no obligation to give more," Peres said on Israel radio. "What we signed is final."
Palestinian officials said they expected several hundred prisoners to return to the Gaza Strip on Thursday, with some releases from Megiddo prison inside Israel already started. About 600 were released Wednesday after the agreement was signed by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Arafat in Cairo.
As part of the accord, Israel is to free 5,000 Palestinian inmates over the next five weeks - about half those held in Israeli jails. The two sides are still at odds over the PLO's demand for the freeing of militants from groups that oppose the peace agreement.