Key PLO building to be shut for 6 months

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Jerusalem Police Chief Miki Levy said Monday the Israeli order to close Orient House -- considered a key symbol of Palestinian aspirations for an independent state -- is for six months.

Levy said the order is significant because it indicates that the closure is not open-ended. His remarks were reported in newspapers and on Israel Radio.

Orient House was seized last week by Israel a day after a Palestinian suicide bombing at a Jerusalem pizzeria that killed 15 people. There have been daily protests since the Israeli flag was raised over the building.

Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank staged a general strike Monday, closing stores and offices in protest against Israel's takeover of the structure, which had been the Palestine Liberation Organization's headquarters in East Jerusalem.

Palestinians view the takeover as a direct challenge to their claims to East Jerusalem, which they want to be the capital of a planned independent state.

Israel, which accuses the Palestinian Authority of encouraging suicide bombings, said the seizure was intended to demonstrate that the Palestinian group cannot make political gains out of what the Israelis called "terrorist" acts.

The Palestinian Authority said the seizure was Israeli aggression aimed at furthering occupation of Palestinian territories.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has authorized his foreign minister to meet Palestinian officials in hopes of securing a cease-fire.

Israeli political sources told CNN that Sharon gave Foreign Minister Shimon Peres approval to hold talks with Palestinian officials -- but not with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat -- if accompanied by an Israeli general.

Meanwhile, a U.S. envoy is to meet with Arafat in a bid to halt the escalating violence between Israelis and Palestinians. David Satterfield, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, already has met with Peres.

He was due to hold talks with the Palestinian Authority president Monday.

Their meeting comes after a weekend of violence. In the West Bank flash point of Hebron, Israeli soldiers shot dead an 8-year-old Palestinian girl during a firefight with Palestinian gunmen.

In a suburb of the northern Israeli port city of Haifa, 20 people sitting on the patio of a cafe were injured in a Palestinian suicide bombing, the second in three days. The bomber was killed.

Police said none of the injuries was serious, in part because the bomb was detonated in an area outside the restaurant, the Wall Street cafe in Kiryat Motzkin.

The Palestinian fundamentalist group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Also Monday, Israel closed its Rafah border with Egypt, preventing Palestinians from entering and leaving Gaza, an Egyptian border official said.

Tourists also were stopped from crossing the border, which is on the southeast corner of Gaza -- home to more than 1 million Palestinians. Israeli authorities said the Rafah crossing was being fired on by Palestinian gunmen.