Netanyahu cannot bring himself to meet Arafat…

Netanyahu cannot bring himself to meet Arafat until September 1996 and raises doubts over his willingness to proceed with the promised Israeli withdrawal from Hebron and other unfinished aspects of Oslo II.

Arafat had finally acted against Hamas in the spring and summer of 1996.

However, Israel's surprise opening of a two thousand-year-old tunnel exit at the north end of the Western Wall in Jerusalem in late September 1996 allows Arafat to play on Palestinian fears that the tunnel is a threat to the al-Aqsa Mosque, which it passes near, and leads to a Muslim quarter in East Jerusalem.

Another violent round of protests ensues, in which Palestinian police fire on Israeli soldiers, killing more than fifteen, while some sixty Palestinian Arabs die.