Before Scheduling Elections, Arafat Demands Israeli Pullback
"As soon as we'll finish this occupation of our land," Mr. Arafat replied in English. "According to the agreement, it was supposed to be at the beginning of 1999."

No elections, he was asked, before the occupation ends?

"Definitely not," Mr. Arafat replied.

…one of Mr. Arafat's Palestinian critics, a formulator of the reform legislation, said Mr. Arafat had a point. "I think he is justified in that," said Ziad Abu Amr, a political scientist and legislator from Gaza. "How can we do an election if we do not have any jurisdiction?"

Palestinian protests began after Ariel Sharon, now the Israeli prime minister but then the opposition leader, made a provocative visit to the Temple Mount. As the protests raged, the Israeli Army set up checkpoints on the roads in the West Bank and surrounded and sealed off major cities, choking Palestinian commerce and much of daily life.

The Gaza Strip is virtually fenced off and surrounded. At the end of March, the Israelis began a six-week sweep of the West Bank, occupying and closing down the major cities of Ramallah, Nablus and Bethlehem, imprisoning Mr. Arafat in his own office and causing substantial damage to property, infrastructure and the Palestinian Authority itself.

In recent days, the Israelis have reverted to their earlier practice of carrying out raids in territory that had been turned over to Palestinian control under the Oslo agreement. After raids in Ramallah and villages near Hebron, among other places, they struck at the Jenin refugee camp, scene of the fiercest fighting last month, arresting 20 people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/18/international/middleeast/18ARAF.html