ISRAEL wants to pass a new law defining the Palestinian uprising known as the intifada as a war in order to avoid court battles with Arabs claiming damages from the Jewish state, the Justice Ministry said yesterday.
Under existing Israeli law, the state is not liable for damages resulting from "war activity" of the Israeli army.
"The proposed legislation is aimed at clarifying ... that the `intifada' [uprising] fits the traditional category of `war'," the ministry said in a statement.
Arabs have filed about 4,000 claims for damages totalling tens of millions of dollars since the start of the intifada in December 1987, it said.
Israelis killed 1,206 Palestinians and Palestinians killed 179 Israelis until the uprising subsided with the September 1993 signing of a landmark Israel PLO interim peace deal.
"A wave of [damage] claims threatens to flood the courts and would put a heavy strain on the defence establishment and state prosecution service," the ministry said.
But it said the government would keep open the option of unilaterally granting compensation, on humanitarian grounds, to people hurt as a result of the activities of Israeli security forces.
Meanwhile, Israeli and PLO peace negotiators yesterday started a new round of talks to plan the expansion of Palestinian self rule in the West Bank and Gaza, officials said.
The talks, convened at Kibbutz Maale Hahamisha, a collective settlement west of Jerusalem, were to set up further implementation of interim agreements signed since the 1993 peace accord.
The agenda for the talks included arrangements for Palestinian sea and air ports, a "safe passage" between the West Bank and Gaza, economic, civil and financial affairs and "people to people" co operation.
Before talks began, the PLO put Israel on notice it expected "final status" talks on the thorniest issues dividing the two sides to resume next month after a brief initial session last May. The issues include the fate of Arab East Jerusalem, Jewish settlements, Palestinian refugees and the shape of Israeli Palestinian borders.
Before yesterday's talks began, the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr David Levy, warned the Palestinian president, Mr Yasser Arafat, that he would set back peace moves if the Palestinians pressed the issue of Jewish settlements.
Mr Levy was answering a warning from Mr Arafat on Saturday that Israel would "gamble" with peace by expanding settlements on occupied Arab land.
A Palestinian negotiator, Mr Saeb Erekat, said settlements would be among the topics to be covered in "final status" talks, suspended since an opening session before Mr Benjamin Netanyahu's election victory in May 1996.
"We want the Israeli government also to know that as of next month we will resume the negotiations on a permanent status on Jerusalem, on settlements, on refugees and borders, and the Israeli government should not preempt these negotiations by trying to put fait accompli policies on the ground," Mr Levy said.
Israel and the PLO have agreed to conclude final status talks by May, 1999.
Palestinians fear Mr Netanyahu's hardline government will accede to pressure by Israeli rightists to bolster settlement activity in Jewish enclaves, where some 130,000 settlers live among more than two million Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza.
Disgruntled settlers voiced irritation with a visit to Hebron yesterday by Israel's Defence Minister, Mr Yitzhak Mordechai.
A Hebron settler spokesman, Mr Noam Arnon, said Mr Mordechai failed to make good on government pledges to bolster settlement in the town of some 400 Jews and more than 100,000 Arabs.
"To approve just another half a house here, [to be begun] several months from now, is to make a mockery of us," Mr Arnon told Israel Radio. "We feel humiliated in this situation."