Israeli member of parliament Yossi Katz met Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and other officials Monday and proposed a temporary ceasefire after months of deadly violence, Palestinian officials said.
In a meeting with Palestinian parliament speaker Ahmed Qorei in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Labour MP Katz discussed the chance of "stopping the violence for 15 days," a Palestinian official attending the meeting said.
Qorei told Katz that Israel "could end the violence by withdrawing its troops from Palestinian areas and ending the siege," the official told AFP after the 45-minute meeting.
Qorei also complained that the Israeli clampdown on the occupied territories, imposed since the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada or uprising in late September, was preventing the Palestinian parliament from holding regular meetings.
Katz, who heads the Israeli parliament's parliamentary affairs committee, told Qorei he was "proud" to visit Ramallah, the official added.
The Labour MP also held separate meetings with Arafat and Palestinian preventive security chief for the West Bank, Jibril Rajoub, Israeli radio reported, adding that Katz had not been given Israeli authorization for the trip to the West Bank.
Israelis have been required to get permission to visit the West Bank and Gaza Strip since levels of violence between Israelis and Palestinians increased last year -- RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP)
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