Israel starts pulling back from West Bank towns

Israeli forces began redeploying from two West Bank towns tonight, hours after Palestinian gunmen raked a bus stop in northern Israel with automatic gunfire, killing four people, a Government official said.

Raanan Gissin, an aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the redeployment operation had begun.

Witnesses said tanks were still within the biblical town of Bethlehem and Beit Jalla, but had begun moving back toward Israeli territory.

The shooting attack in Hadera and a drive-by shooting earlier in the day that killed an Israeli soldier had thrown the withdrawal into question, with Israeli officials demanding a ceasefire before they would withdraw.

‘‘Apparently during the day, they (the Palestinians) have taken several steps and during the evening they have started to comply with their obligations,’’ Gissin said.

Israeli forces first launched incursions into West Bank towns on October 18.

American and international criticism was particularly strong when they entered Bethlehem the birthplace of Jesus Christ a day later.

The withdrawals from the two towns were to be test cases for Israeli withdrawals from four other towns it entered after Palestinian militants assassinated Rehavam Zeevi, an ultra-nationalist Israeli Cabinet minister, on October 17.

Those towns are Jenin, Qalqilya, Ramallah and Tulkarem.

Israel said it had entered the towns to hunt for Zeevi’s killers and to prevent further attacks on Israelis.

The Israeli incursions represented the most extensive Israeli military action in 13 months of fighting.

They left 38 Palestinians dead, failed to net all of Zeevi’s killers and angered the Bush administration, which worried that further unrest would undermine support among Arab nations for its anti-terrorism campaign.

Since fighting erupted more than a year ago, 730 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 190 on the Israeli side.