Israel moving military hardware out of Bethlehem

As the Israeli and Palestinian prime minister prepared to meet to discuss their next peace moves, Israeli army trucks were removing equipment from a military base near Bethlehem today.

Israeli forces are to pull out of the Biblical West Bank town tomorrow in line with US President George Bush’s ambitious road map to peace. Troops have already pulled out of part of the Gaza Strip.

On the Palestinian side, a three month truce declared by the main militant groups was marred yesterday by the shooting of a road worker on the West Bank. Renegade cells from the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade group have said they will not observe the ceasefire.

The chief of Israel’s Shin Bet security service said today that it was crucial that the Palestinian police begin disarming Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other militias in the Gaza Strip.

“The real test (in Gaza) will be in two or three weeks, when they have to deal with disarming the terrorist organisations,” Avi Dichter said.

“We will not move on to transfer responsibility for the West Bank before it becomes totally clear that in Gaza the process of disarming terror groups has begun.”

Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas opposes the use of force against militias, fearing that it would spark a civil war.

“The misuse of weapons must be prevented through dialogue and agreement, not through internal war,” he was expected to tell MPs later today.

In Bethlehem, trucks loaded with boxes and shipping containers were seen leaving an army base on the outskirts of town.

In the Gaza Strip, the pullback has gone smoothly, and Palestinian police have taken up positions left by the Israeli forces.

Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon were to meet later today to discuss their next obligations under the road map to Mideast peace and Palestinian statehood by 2005.

Abbas will ask Sharon to ease travel restrictions on Palestinians, including an internal closure that prevents people from moving between West Bank communities, Palestinian officials said.

He will also seek a release of many of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners and demand that Israel halt construction of a massive security wall through the West Bank that is meant to keep out Palestinian attackers.

US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has told Israeli officials that Washington opposes the construction of the barrier, which critics say unilaterally draws the border for a future Palestinian state, without waiting for a peace deal.

* In other developments today, Israel demolished the foundations of a mosque that was being built without authorisation next to a major Christian shrine, the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, Jesus’ boyhood town.

In Jerusalem, police allowed non-Muslims to resume tours of the Al Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam’s third holiest shrine, which had been closed to visitors since the outbreak of fighting.

A September 28, 2000 visit by then-opposition leader Sharon to the shrine, meant to underline Israel’s claim to sovereignty, triggered deadly riots that escalated into the Palestinian uprising. Jews also revere the area as the site of their biblical temples.