Municipal Services: The Palestinian side shall continue to provide municipal services to all residents of Hebron, without discrimination.

Normalization and Prevention of Friction

Finally, the Protocol contains a number of provisions designed to reduce friction between the two sides and lead to the normalization of life in Hebron. Among these are commitments by both sides to take all steps necessary for the opening of the Hasbahe market as a retail market, to cooperate with regard to the location of Palestinian Council offices in Area H-2 where the establishment of these offices might create friction and affect public order or security, and to reopen the Shuhada road to vehicles within 4 months. With regard to the reopening of the Shuhada road, an Agreed Minute attached to the Protocol provides that this process will begin immediately, and will be completed within 4 months, if preparations for the reopening in accordance with an American plan for renovating and upgrading the area of the road have been completed by that date.

NOTE FOR THE RECORD -

Agreement between the sides on Non - Hebron Issues

Main Points

At their meeting on January 15, 1997, at which the Hebron Protocol was initialed, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Chairman Arafat requested Dennis Ross, the US Special Middle East Coordinator, to prepare a Note for the Record dealing with non- Hebron issues. The Note confirms the following agreements between the parties:

Mutual Undertakings:

The two sides agreed on the need for the peace process to move forward and reaffirmed their commitment to implement the Interim Agreement on the basis of reciprocity.

Israeli Undertakings:

The Note sets out the following Israeli undertakings:

The first phase of further redeployment will be carried out in the first week of March - This represents an agreement by the two sides to amend the timetable contained in Article XI of the Interim Agreement, whereby the first of the three stages of further redeployments was to take place six months after the inauguration of the council, i. e. by September 7, 1996. The Governemnt of Israel decided upon the first phase of the further redeployment on March 7, 1997, agreeing to transfer 7% of the territory in Area B to Area A and 2% of the territory in Area C to Area B.

Prisoner release issues to be dealt with in accordance with the Interim Agreement - The Agreement provides, in Annex VII, that, in addition to the two stages of prisoner release already implemented, there will be a third stage in which prisoners from among specified categories will be released during the permanent status negotiations.

Negotiations will be conducted on outstanding Interim Agreement issues - The Note specifies six areas in which negotiations are to be conducted in parallel: Safe passage  

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