Israel to slow pullout as violence strains ceasefire

ISRAEL is going to slow its planned pullout from five West Bank towns after a day of violence strained an informal ceasefire, and it will stop the process altogether if Palestinians don’t halt all attacks, Israeli security officials said yesterday.

Despite the warning, Palestinian militants fired three mortar shells at a Jewish settlement in Gaza yesterday, following a barrage on Monday. The shells caused no damage or injuries.

Also yesterday, Israel’s attorney general ruled that a secret decision by Cabinet ministers to seize Jerusalem land of Palestinians living in the West Bank violates domestic and international law.

Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz met late on Monday with Palestinian negotiator Mohammed Dahlan to discuss a hand-over of West Bank towns to Palestinian security control.

Mr Mofaz told Mr Dahlan that Israel would withdraw from one city at a time rather than from all five at once, apparently beginning with Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian government.

The pull-out might begin in coming days but not necessarily before Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas hold their first meeting, tentatively set for February 8.

Palestinians objected to the new Israeli position on the West Bank hand-over.

“We will not tell them to stop if they are withdrawing from Ramallah but we want them to implement the previous understandings, the withdrawal from five cities,” a senior Palestinian official said.

The Mofaz-Dahlan meeting was overshadowed by the death of a 10-year-old Palestinian girl in a Gaza refugee camp on Monday, followed by a barrage of mortar shells fired on Jewish settlements.

The violence broke an informal cease-fire worked out by Mr Abbas that had brought rare calm to an area torn by four years of bloodshed.

Norhan Deeb was standing in her schoolyard in the Rafah refugee camp on the Gaza-Egypt border on Monday when she was hit in the head by a bullet.

Palestinian witnesses said the gunfire came from Israeli forces on the border but the Israeli military said soldiers did not open fire in that part of Rafah.

Israeli security officials blamed Palestinians firing in the air to celebrate their return from the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, but residents denied that.

Hamas threatened further retaliation “if the crimes continue.”

The Israeli military said it took that to mean the militant group was trying to set a pattern of retaliation for perceived Israeli acts of violence, within the framework of a cease-fire.

Mr Mofaz told Mr Dahlan that such an understanding was unacceptable.

Mr Mofaz said the Palestinian Authority must stop the mortar fire, regardless of the explanation, and Palestinian police, who have deployed throughout Gaza in recent days for the first time in years, must restrain militants.

He said their performance in Gaza would influence the extent to which Israel would hand over responsibility in the West Bank.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Palestinian police “will exert every possible effort to stop such firing.”

Mr Dahlan asked Israel to reopen Gaza border crossings closed after recent Palestinian attacks.

In Washington, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said there can be no peace in the Middle East unless the Palestinians gain a viable, contiguous state.

Rice also urged Arab states to stop incitement to violence but her emphasis was on Israel having to yield territory and “creating conditions in which a new Palestinian state could emerge.”