Israel orders its forces to pull out of West Bank town

Associated Press WriterJERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel's defense minister ordered his forces Tuesday to leave the West Bank town of Ramallah, continuing a staged pullout from six towns the Israelis took over after the killing of an Israeli Cabinet minister.

Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said in a statement that Israel would turn Ramallah over to Palestinian commanders, who would be responsible for security.

The incursions have drawn repeated demands from the United States that Israel withdraw.

After it leaves Ramallah, the seat of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, Israel will still control of parts of two other towns -- Jenin and Tulkarem. No time for the withdrawal from Ramallah was announced.

The Israeli army moved into the six towns after Palestinian militants assassinated Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi on Oct. 17.

Also Tuesday, Palestinian militants fired on an Israeli army patrol south of the West Bank town of Nablus. Three Palestinians and one Israeli were killed in a 40-minute firefight, villagers and the army said, but they differed over the circumstances.

The army said all three Palestinians were killed during the exchange of fire. Palestinian authorities accused the Israeli soldiers of executing wounded Palestinians after emergency crews arrived to treat them, and they demanded an international inquiry.

Kamal el Hinai, a first aid worker with the Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance service who went to treat the injured, said that when his team arrived, an Israeli soldier told him one Palestinian was dead and two were wounded.

When crew members asked to treat the wounded, the soldiers told them to wait, he told The Associated Press.

El Hinai said he was standing about 50 yards from the Palestinians, who were on the ground. "About seven or eight soldiers, they made a circle and surrounded the bodies and opened fire on the ground," he said.

Afterward, the Red Crescent team members asked again if they could treat the wounded. The soldier responded the Palestinians were all now dead, he said.

All three had bullets in their heads, said the director of Rafidia hospital, Dr. Hussam el Jouhary.

In a written statement, the Hamas militant group said only that three of its members opened fire on an Israeli army patrol and were killed.

Col. Yossi Adiri, the army's brigade commander in the Nablus area, denied that the soldiers killed wounded Palestinians, saying they all died in the firefight.

"I personally allowed the entire Red Crescent ambulance team into the area. I accompanied them. They saw three dead terrorists and returned to their ambulance," he said.

He said the Palestinians had a Kalashnikov assault rifle, an M-16 and two pistols and had fired between 60 and 70 rounds.

Elsewhere in the northern West Bank, a car exploded in the Jenin refugee camp, killing two members of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, Fatah officials said.

Palestinian security officials accused Israel of involvement. The Israeli government said the two were preparing a bomb and it went off prematurely.

The violence came as Israeli officials confirmed that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres had met once and planned another session Friday to discuss Peres' new peace initiative.

Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin said Tuesday that the latest version of the plan, as he understood it, did not include the issue of dismantling Jewish settlements. Israeli newspapers said Peres' initial plan reportedly included removing settlements in Gaza.

The Israeli daily Haaretz on Tuesday said the initiative under discussion with Sharon included a demilitarized Palestinian state in Gaza first and negotiations on its borders in the West Bank. The newspaper said the proposal would also maintain Israeli control of Jerusalem and offer compensation for millions of Palestinian war refugees and descendants -- but would not allow them to return to Israel.

Peres refused to discuss details. He indicated he and Sharon are not in agreement, but told Israel Radio, "We are examining whether it is possible to bring our positions closer."

The Palestinian information minister, Yasser Abed Rabbo, said the reports of a plan were merely an effort by the Israelis to "sabotage" any more far-reaching U.S. initiative.

"This plan is worse than the occupation," he said. "It's an attempt to keep Jerusalem under occupation, and to cancel the rights of the Palestinian refugees and to separate the West Bank into several cantons."

Abed Rabbo also denied a report in the London-based Arabic-language daily Al Hayat newspaper that said Arafat was considering declaring a Palestinian state at the U.N. General Assembly's annual debate, which starts over the weekend.