Israeli troops and tanks have begun to withdraw from the West Bank city of Ramallah, but a "security blockade" will maintain the seige, said reports.
Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer said in a statement that his forces would leave Ramallah but would continue with their cordon around the town, just outside Palestinian-controlled territory, reported AP.
Israeli forces started pulling out after midnight on Wednesday, according to a senior Palestinian officier charged with liaising with Israel, said the BBC Online.
Israel says it is planning a staged withdrawal from six Palestinian towns seized after Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine assassinated a cabinet minister in retaliation for the killing of their own leader this fall.
CONFLICT CONTINUES WITH MORE KILLINGS
As the latest Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation rolled on, three Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed in an exchange of fire near Nablus, reported the BBC.
An Israeli field commander in the area, Colonel Yossi Adiri, said that the Palestinians opened fire, killing the Israeli soldier, said the online report. The three resistance fighters died in the subsequent exchange, Adiri said.
But a Red Crescent Society official in Nablus, Dr Mohammad Awadeh, called one of the killings "a pure execution."
Al Jazeera satellite channel’s correspondent cited RCS sources as confirming that the Palestinians were alive after the shootout, but that the Israeli forces barred a rescue team from reaching them. The PA demanded a probe of the alleged execution.
Also on Tuesday, two members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade were killed in a refugee camp near Jenin on Tuesday when an explosion went off in a car, Palestinian sources said, according to CNN.
The two men were identified as Akrama Istetah, 35, and Majdi Tayeb, 30. Both men were wanted by Israel for alleged terrorist activities.
Palestinian officials claim Israel has assassinated, using bullets, rockets and bombs, more than 50 leaders of the Intifada, or uprising.
DIPLOMACY FOCUSES ON PALESTINIAN STATEHOOD
As the fighting continued, efforts to reach a negotiated settlement were mainly devoted to the creation of a Palestinian state, and the question of its final shape.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his foreign minister, Shimon Peres, are due to meet Friday to discuss a new peace initiative, but differences remain between the two, Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin told AP.
Peres said last week that he was working on a new peace plan, according to the agency. Israeli news reports said it called for a Palestinian state and the dismantling of Jewish settlements in Gaza, where about 7,000 Israelis live amid more than a million Palestinians.
The UK-based Economist magazine has reported that successive Israeli governments "flouted" the 1993 Oslo peace accords by settling thousands of citizens on land seized from Palestinians in 1967.
Sharon has not said he would dismantle any of the nearly 150 Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip - where some 200,000 Israelis live - and in the past he has been one of the key backers of the Jewish settler movement.
Gissin said Tuesday the latest version of the plan did not include the issue of dismantling settlements. He said that was to be decided later during negotiations on a permanent peace accord with the Palestinians, added AP.
Arab leaders are wary of supposed peace initiatives aimed at settling the 13-month Palestinian conflict.
Figures ranging from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to Arab League head Amr Moussa have warned against political fraud that could lead to the establishment of a disarmed, economically dependent and dismembered Palestinian state.
Conflicting Palestinian and Israeli claims to occupied Jerusalem have also been a major sticking point in past negotiations.
The holy city, ruled by Muslims for hundreds of years, was designated as an open city by the UN at the time of Israel's creation in 1948. However, Israeli forces conquered and occupied the city in 1967, and subsequent Israeli governments have claimed it as the country's capital - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
