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Palestinian Telecommunications Employees to Return to Abu Dis Office
Employees of the Palestine Telecommunications Company (PalTel) will be allowed to return to their office in Abu Dis, Israel's coordinator of activities in the Palestinian territories said on Sunday.
"It is not the intention of the (Israeli) defense establishment to disrupt the business of the company. It wishes to permit the normal management of the business," the coordinator said.
Israeli troops closed the PalTel office on the outskirts of East Jerusalem Sunday morning. The office, which handles Palestinian telephones in the Jerusalem area, is part of a Palestinian compound in Abu Dis.
But the Israeli coordinator did not specify when the PalTel will be reopened.
Israeli troops seized other buildings in the compound, alongside the Orient House, the representative office of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Jerusalem, on Friday, one day after a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up and killed 14 other people and injured more than 100 in a Jerusalem restaurant.
Palestinian officials have accused Israel of violating its commitment that the Orient House, which symbolizes Palestinian sovereignty over East Jerusalem, enjoys immunity.
Israel, however, has charged that the Palestinians have been carrying out "illegal activities" in the Orient House rather than directing cultural activities and providing social services for Palestinians in East Jerusalem as they were supposed to do.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast War and later annexed it in a move that is not internationally recognized.
The Palestinians have been striving for an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital. Israel has banned the Palestinian National Authority to have formal offices in the city.
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