Israel to withdraw more troops

ISRAEL is set to withdraw its troops from a second West Bank city today in a gesture to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after he won a commitment from militants to hold their fire against Israelis.

“We expect to transfer Tulkarem to Palestinian responsibility,” Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz told reporters at an army base in central Israel.

He said the city of Qalqilya would be next, but gave no date for that pullback.

Israeli and Palestinian officers met yesterday evening to finalise details of the redeployment from Tulkarem, a city of 50,000 people. Israel handed the West Bank city of Jericho to Palestinian security control last Wednesday.

Israel had promised on the eve of a February 8 peace summit to move its forces away from five West Bank cities it surrounded and frequently raided in the past four-and-a-half years of fighting.

Its network of army checkpoints, restricting Palestinian travel across the West Bank, is one of the most hated symbols of Israeli occupation for the 2.3 million Palestinians who live in the territory. Israel calls the roadblocks a security necessity.

But violence has dropped dramatically since Mr Abbas, elected on January 9 to replace the late Yasser Arafat, and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared a ceasefire at last month’s summit in Egypt.

About a dozen Palestinian militant factions agreed at talks with Mr Abbas last week to extend until the end of this year the de facto truce that preceded his meeting with Mr Sharon.

Mr Sharon called the move a positive first step but reaffirmed a call to disarm the militant groups in a US-backed peace roadmap for the Palestinian Authority.

Mr Mofaz said Israel was keeping a close eye on Palestinian efforts to contain militants in cities it was handing over “step by step” and called on local security authorities to “dismantle terrorist infrastructure.”

In violence that interrupted the calm, Palestinian gunmen wounded three Israeli soldiers and a policeman searching in a refugee camp south of the West Bank city of Ramallah for cars stolen in Israel.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, Israeli forces shot and wounded a Palestinian who tried to steal a gun from a policeman at a roadblock near Bethlehem, a police spokesman said.

The army took another step toward implementing Mr Sharon’s plan to evacuate the Gaza Strip and four settlements in the northern West Bank by banning Israeli citizens from moving to the northern West Bank before the withdrawal this summer.

The ban followed a similar order issued last Sunday preventing Israelis from moving to the 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza.

Officials are afraid of an influx of militant Israelis intent on blocking the evacuation which is slated to start in late July.

An army statement said the decree was “in accordance with the decision made by the political echelon and as part of the preparations to implement the government decision to carry out the disengagement plan.”