JERUSALEM, Nov. 24 - Israel confirmed Wednesday that it would allow international observers to monitor the Palestinian presidential election on Jan. 9, as the Palestinians had requested.

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom made explicit what Israeli officials privately told Secretary of State Colin L. Powell earlier this week. It was another indication that Israel, after the death of Yasir Arafat and under new pressure from the West for movement on peace negotiations, does not want to be seen as hindering the Palestinians' right to vote.

Israeli officials say they will make it possible for Palestinians in East Jerusalem to vote, even if by postal ballots, will pull back troops from big towns in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and will dismantle a number of checkpoints to make it easier for Palestinian candidates and voters to travel freely.

The European Union said Monday that it would send an observer mission for the election. Mr. Shalom, meeting on Wednesday with the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, said those and other observers could enter "to ensure that these elections are fair and the results will be acceptable, not only to the international community but first and foremost to the Palestinian people."

In another public sign of cooperation on smaller matters, the Israeli and Palestinian tourism ministers, Gideon Ezra and Mitri Abu Aida, met Wednesday to sign an agreement on cooperative measures intended to ensure safe and smooth passage of pilgrims and tourists visiting the Holy Land, especially during the Christmas season.

Tourism is down significantly for Israel and the West Bank, given the violence of the last four years, and both sides are eager to reassure Christian and Jewish tourists that they can travel safely.

Mr. Ezra is also the Israeli interior minister, in charge of the police. But the main Christmas pilgrimage site, Bethlehem, is in Palestinian territory, so security there is under the jurisdiction of the Israeli Army.

The agreement was signed in the King David Hotel here. Mr. Aida noted that it was the first Israeli-Palestinian document signed in a long time and said he hoped that it was "a first step toward better cooperation." Asked what he could do to stop the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, Mr. Aida only smiled.

But the new chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Mahmoud Abbas, who is considered the strong favorite to win the Jan. 9 election, has condemned the intifada as counterproductive and called for it to stop.

Mr. Straw will meet Mr. Abbas and the Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, on Thursday to urge them to reform the Palestinian security services, and to show Britain's support for a moderate post-Arafat leadership. Mr. Straw will also lay a wreath on Mr. Arafat's grave in Ramallah, something that Mr. Powell and the Americans declined to do.

The police in Jerusalem said Wednesday that they had arrested four American yeshiva students accused of throwing a gasoline bomb at a group of Palestinians in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem's Old City on Tuesday night. The bomb, which failed to ignite, was thrown from a window of a building where the four Americans were living, said Gil Kleiman, a police spokesman.

The students denied the charges and were released on bail on Wednesday.

In Damascus, the outgoing United Nations special envoy to the Middle East, Terje Roed-Larsen, said President Bashar al-Assad of Syria was willing to resume peace talks with Israel "without conditions."

Mr. Assad previously insisted that talks with Israel resume precisely where they broke down in 2000, when a Labor government was in charge in Israel, and there has been no official indication that Mr. Assad's position has changed. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, from the rightist Likud Party, has said that it would be "very dangerous" to start talks from the same point years later.

But Sarah Jessica Parker's position on Israeli billboards has changed considerably. After complaints from religious Jews about her spaghetti-strap dress on posters and billboards advertising Lux soap, Ms. Parker now appears in a dress that covers her arms, back and thigh. Unilever Israel said her wardrobe had been altered because of the sudden onset of winter, which requires warmer clothing.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company