Russian roulette in West Bank casino town

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JERICHO (Reuters) -- Your money or your life?

Weeks of violent clashes in the West Bank have forced Israel's compulsive gamblers to choose the latter now that the battles have shut down the Palestinian answer to Las Vegas.

The Oasis casino in Palestinian-ruled Jericho drew 2,500 high-rollers a night -- 95 percent of them Israeli -- before Israeli-Palestinian hostilities erupted on September 28.

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The 130 gaming tables at the lowest casino on earth, the gleaming centerpiece of a $150 million tourism and leisure complex near the shores of the Dead Sea, lie silent.

Forget blackjack or poker.

The shooting gallery is the only game in town these days as Israeli troops posted at a desert junction fight near-nightly gun battles with Palestinian militiamen inside the usually sleepy self-ruled enclave.

An Israeli soldier was killed here on Wednesday, hours before Palestinian and Israeli leaders reached their fifth truce agreement in as many weeks of violence. At least 168 people, mostly Palestinians, have been killed in the unrest.

The casino, a desert jewel operated by Casinos Austria and owned by a publicity-shy consortium of European and well-connected Palestinian investors, has been sprayed with machine-gun fire.

Just beyond a giant yellow roadside sign reading "$-CHANGE-$," two manhole-size artillery cavities yawn in the wall of a roadside restaurant more accustomed to taking Israeli shekels than shells.

"The casino is temporarily closed," said one casino manager drily.

The lucrative fruit of interim peace accords, the casino has efficiently transferred funds from Israelis barred from gambling at home into cash-strapped Palestinian-ruled areas.

Jericho's Vegas-style vision of peace even extended to plans to set up a wedding chapel to provide civil marriages to Israelis whose Jewish origins were in doubt or to inter-faith couples who have fallen foul of Israel's Orthodox establishment.

But the oasis of peace is now an island of unemployment.

Most of the casino's 1,500 employees have been temporarily laid off and the luxury Intercontinental Hotel is empty.

Rows of restaurants along a central drag locals call the "Champs Elysees" are shuttered. Only a boy on a donkey cart rattles down the usually bustling tourist strip.

City officials fear that even once the shooting stops it will take at least six months before tourists come back to visit the oldest city in the world.

"And it will take a year before the Israelis return," said municipality secretary Sa'ed Sweidi.

But town officials may be underestimating the casino's allure. Amazingly, the Oasis kept operating for nearly a month after the unrest erupted.

Dozens of Israelis were determined to spin the roulette wheel even if they had to play the Russian variety to get there.

Stuffed in the back of Palestinian-marked cars or by jeep through the desert brambles, Israelis kept coming even after two Israeli soldiers were killed by a Palestinian lynch mob in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

"It never ceases to amaze me what people will do to gamble," said a casino official.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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