Israel employed several measures to combat terrorism during 1997.

Ongoing Closure of the Territories
During this past year, there was an ongoing closure of the territories, with special stringencies (such as internal quarantines that bar travel between Palestinian-ruled localities) added when deemed necessary, such as after the three suicide bombings. Palestinian VIPs were not exempt; on Sept. 24, no less than Suha Arafat was held up for more than an hour at a checkpoint near Hebron while en route from Bethlehem to Gaza.

A Semi-Crackdown on Undocumented Palestinians in Israel
Those who run the blockade use well-traveled routes that Israel's security forces often ignore in order to alleviate pressure on the Palestinian economy. In May-November 1997, 1,540 Palestinians were prosecuted for illegal presence in the country, 300% more than in the corresponding months of 1996; during the same period, 2,100 criminal files were opened against the illegals' Israeli helpers, in addition to citations issued and administrative fines levied.

Searches and Arrests
Regular searches for and arrests of Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives took place -- more than 1,600 by the IDF alone. This included the dispatch of undercover forces into Areas A (the PA-ruled cities), as in the arrest in a Tulkarm café and transfer to Israel of Ghassan Mahmud Abdul-Rahman Mardawi (Islamic Jihad), wanted for planning and organizing terrorist cells (July 24) and the apprehension in Jenin of Jihad Kamel, a Hamas operative wanted for involvement in two bus bombings in April 1994 (Nov. 17).

More common were raids on villages in Areas B, where Hamas keeps its recruits in order to spare the PA Israeli pressure to arrest them -- since Israel holds overarching security authority there. These included the capture by the GSS of a three-man Islamic Jihad cell that had murdered an Israeli policeman and wounded his wife in Samaria on July 16, 1996. In early May, security forces arrested a Hamas team that had been planning to disguising themselves as West Bank settlers and/or haredim in order to abduct a soldier for bargaining purposes. A Hamas cell in Jerusalem was captured on August 19; it had stalked mayors Ehud Olmert and Ronnie Milo of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, respectively, with the idea of kidnapping them. Members of this grouping had also placed five explosive charges in the old Tel- Aviv central bus terminal on January 9, 1997.

Domestic and foreign observers criticized some interrogation techniques as bordering on torture, however the courts upheld the GSS in every case. Comprehensive legislation concerning the GSS and its prerogatives was drafted and awaited ministerial action at year's end. In the meantime, the ministerial committee for the GSS regularly extended the agency's permission to apply "special methods" in "ticking bomb" investigations.

Prosecution
Hassan Ali Salameh was convicted on June 30 for orchestrating three of the four terror attacks that traumatized the country in February-March 1996. On July 7th, he was sentenced to 1,170 years in prison -- 46 consecutive "life" sentences at 25 years apiece (one for each death traced to him) plus 20 years for lesser offenses. On July 9, Nazareth District Court sentenced Sa'id bin Hussein Suleimani, a 46 year-old Bedouin from the Jezreel Valley, to 30 years in prison for driving the perpetrator of the fourth attack in 1996 from the Gaza Strip to Tel-Aviv.

Administrative Detention
This device, invoked most frequently to protect Israeli agents, Palestinian collaborators, and classified evidence from the disclosure that prosecution would entail, left more than 400 Palestinians in custody without charges at year's end.

Demolition and Sealing Homes
Terrorists' homes were demolished and sealed, most notably those in Asira esh-Shamaliyya that had been home to the Mahane Yehuda and pedestrian mall suicide bombers and their families (December 15-16). The families petitioned the High Court of Justice against this action but lost; the Court ruled once again that the army's decision was based on a proper balance between the harm caused the families and the gravity of the terrorists' crimes.

Rabbinical outreach
For the past three years, in the wake of a Foreign Ministry study of the propensity of Moslem theologians to defend suicide bombings, Israel's two chief rabbis have been forwarding messages to clerics in Iran and Syria via the government of Norway, urging them to invoke the faith to dissuade the bombers and to embark on a dialogue with Israeli Jewish clergymen. Although these messages have had no response, various rabbis have begun talks with Hamas-affiliated clerics.

Financial Restrictions
Action has been taken against Hamas bankrollers, including the transfer of information to American antiterrorism authorities. Five Islamic institutions overseas (four in Europe and one in the US) were on the Defense Ministry's list of "prohibited associations" because of their involvement -- according to Israeli security agencies -- in funneling money to Hamas. On December 8th, Israeli police raided the offices of the local branch of one of these institutions, the Texas based American Holyland Foundation, and satisfied themselves that the information was correct. A Hamas affiliated Charity Committee, headquartered in a village east of Hebron, was shut down on August 27th for stockpiling incitement material and forwarding funds to terrorism-implicated families.

Passive Security
Border police extended their turf to shopping malls country-wide and to the beaches of Tel-Aviv. At year's end, a fence was under construction along the "frontier" near Kokhav Yair as part the "separation plan" promoted in 1995 by then Public Security Minister, Moshe Shahal.

Action by Jordan
The Jordanian regime, and especially King Hussein, left little room for doubt in its response to the murder of seven Israeli schoolgirls by soldier Ahmed Daqamsa on the jointly administered "peace island" at Naharayim (March 13). The actions included the king's condolence call on the victims' families; the conviction of Daqamsa on July; and Hussein's $1 million personal donation to the victims' families.

The Palestinian Authority
Action by the Palestinian Authority focused on micro cooperation and eschewed systematic moves against the Islamist infrastructure (closure of institutions, confiscation of arms, arrests without "revolving door" release, etc.) in the autonomous areas. An erstwhile modality of cooperation in apprehending terror suspects arrests by PA security forces made on the basis of Israeli intelligence delivered to them was hardly in evidence in 1997. When the PA wished to be seen containing terror, principally to impress the United States, it invited CIA agents to look on. Thus occurred on August 19, for example, while Israeli sappers detonated explosives discovered in a Hamas laboratory in Beit Sahour (Area A), east of Bethlehem.

Israel intelligence considered the PA and its leader perfectly capable of containing the terrorist organizations but reluctant to do so because such action would not further the cause of Palestinian statehood. The PA made no extensive arrests of Hamas operatives after the Mahane Yehuda bombing. Between the two Jerusalem suicide atrocities, the PA actually strengthened the terror infrastructure in the autonomous areas by releasing hundreds of jailed terrorists. Although PA action after the pedestrian mall attack was more vigorous, it, too, left day-to-day operations of Hamas and Islamic Jihad largely undisturbed.