THE PALESTINIAN Authority yesterday announced it would build an airport between Jerusalem and Jericho. The facility will cost $340 million (€244 million) and will be constructed on a four square kilometre plot of West Bank land. “We are ready to start work on the plot in the first half of next year,” said Palestinian minister of transportation Sa’di al-Kurunz.

Work is set to be completed within two years if international donors provide the finance for the endeavour. The plan is for a single terminal, six boarding gates, a car park and international facilities.

“An airport means sovereignty, freedom, progress and economic development,” the minister said.

The airport would meet international standards and handle both passengers and cargo. Training for pilots and other staff has already begun, he revealed.

“The airport we’re planning is going to be very modern,” said Ali Shaath, the chief engineer employed by the contractor involved in the planning of the project. “It will serve residents of the West Bank and many tourists who want to come to this region.”

The airport was going to be named for the first Palestinian president, Yasser Arafat, but, on reconsideration, will be called Palestine airport.

Although the location of the facility is in the two-thirds of the West Bank under full Israeli control and the Israeli press reports the proposal had been submitted to the Israeli prime minister’s office, Mr Kurunz said that the authority “did not and will not ask permission from Israel”.

He said the 1993 Oslo accords give the right to the Palestinians to build two airports.

Israeli daily Maarivsaid Israel had not responded to the letter detailing the plan but suggested Israel would agree, perhaps be- cause such a facility would fit in with prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s call for Palestinian economic development as an alternative to political independence in a separate state.

If Mr Netanyahu agrees to the project, he is likely to insist that the new airport would adhere to the regime imposed on Gaza’s ill-fated Yasser Arafat international airport opened in December 1998 by Mr Arafat and then US president Bill Clinton.

Disembarking passengers were met by Israeli security, bussed to the Rafah terminal at the Egyptian border, and processed by Israeli and Palestinian immigration. Cargo was also cleared through Rafah.

The Gaza airport’s control tower and radar installation were destroyed by the Israeli air force in 2001 and the runway was bulldozed by Israel in 2002 during the second Palestinian intifada.

The Allenby/King Hussein Bridge on the Jordan-Israel border is the Israeli-controlled entry/exit point nearest the site of the proposed airport. Israel will not only control the area where the airport is located but also the access routes to and from the facility.

Israel’s control over most of the West Bank gives it a veto on Pales- tinian development projects.

Recently Israel threatened to halt construction on Rawabi, the first new Palestinian city to be built in the West Bank for 62 years, if the contractor does not resolve problems with pollution.

Rawabi is sited within a Palestinian-administered enclave but access is through Israeli-held territory.