‘Israel to relinquish West Bank territory’

ACTING Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said yesterday that Israel plans to withdraw from some of the territory it holds on the West Bank.

It was the first time Mr Olmert, who took over from ailing Ariel Sharon a month ago, has spelled out his thinking for future policy if he wins March 28 elections. The Kadima Party he inherited from Mr Sharon, who is comatose after a stroke, is far ahead in the polls.

"We will disengage from most of the Palestinian population that lives in Judea and Samaria," Mr Olmert told Israel's Channel 2 TV, using the Biblical names for the West Bank. "That will obligate us to leave territories under Israeli control today."

Mr Olmert listed four areas Israel would keep under his vision: Maaleh Adumim, a settlement of 30,000 next to Jerusalem; Gush Etzion, a bloc of settlements south of Jerusalem; Ariel, a settlement of 18,000 deep in the West Bank; and the Jordan River valley.

About three-quarters of Israel's 244,000 West Bank settlers live in the areas Mr Olmert outlined in the TV interview, according to government figures and estimates by the Peace Now settlement watchdog group.

Mr Olmert made no mention of the string of small settlements in the Jordan valley. However, he said: "It is impossible to abandon control of the eastern border of Israel."

Earlier yesterday, an Islamic Jihad commander was killed in the West Bank town of Nablus.

The attack followed an air strike that killed two other militants in Gaza.

The Israeli military said it targeted a car in Gaza City carrying al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades militants involved in producing rockets to be fired at Israel.

Al-Aqsa identified the dead as senior commanders and threatened revenge against Israel. Since Thursday, Israel has killed nine Gaza militants in airstrikes.

Mr Olmert said that Israel would retain a "united Jerusalem", a term understood as encompassing the eastern section claimed by the Palestinians for the capital of the state they hope to create.

Earlier in the day, he toured construction sites of the separation barrier Israel is building in the Jerusalem area and said its completion is a top priority.

The barrier will extend along the length of the West Bank, dipping into the territory to encircle the settlements Mr Olmert listed. Israel says it is necessary to keep suicide bombers out, but Palestinians denounce it as a land grab.

Mr Olmert also hinted that Israel might carry out further unilateral withdrawals from lands the Palestinians want for a state, like its summer pull-out from the Gaza Strip especially now that Hamas militants sworn to Israel's destruction have swept Palestinian elections.

"We are going toward separation from the Palestinians," he said. "We are going toward determining a permanent border for the state of Israel."

Mr Olmert's remarks sharpened Kadima's position on the central issue facing Israeli voters in March 28 elections the country's final borders. Mr Sharon formed the Kadima Party in November after despairing of bringing his Likud Party around to his view that territorial concessions to the Palestinians were inevitable.