Israel plans to withdraw from Palestinian areas

JERUSALEM -- Israeli and Palestinian security officials reached agreement Sunday on a plan for Israeli troops to withdraw from parts of the Gaza Strip and from the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Israeli officials said.

The agreement was reached Sunday evening between Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razak Yehiyeh, the Defense Ministry said in a statement. Israeli forces would withdraw on the condition "the Palestinian side takes responsibility to calm the security situation and reduce violence," the statement said.

There was no immediate Palestinian comment, but the report was the first time in months that negotiations between the two sides have prospered. The pullout was to begin Monday.

Aiming for cease-fire

In a meeting that lasted three hours, Ben-Eliezer met with senior Palestinian security officials in Tel Aviv to discuss the pullout plan, under which Israeli troops in Bethlehem and parts of the Gaza Strip would leave Palestinian areas.

"The talks are aimed at getting a cease-fire and reducing tension," Ben-Eliezer told Israeli army radio, prior to the meeting.

Ben-Eliezer told a Cabinet meeting that the number of Palestinian attacks against Israelis had decreased over the past week. But he ascribed the drop to army operations and said there was no decline in Palestinian attempts to strike military and civilian targets.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the same meeting that it was in Israel's interest to reach a political agreement with the Palestinians that would lead to genuine peace, but there would be no let up in "activity against terrorist leaders," according to a statement from his office.

The withdrawal plan is meant as a pilot scheme, whereby Palestinian forces would retake security control of areas vacated by the Israeli troops, and will work to prevent attacks on Israelis. If the attacks stop in Gaza and other areas where the Israeli troops withdraw, then it will be gradually extended throughout areas that are supposed to be under the control of the Palestinian Authority.

Fighting terrorism

Ben-Eliezer also met Sunday with United Nations envoy Catherine Bertini for talks on how to improve conditions for Palestinians, who are struggling with spiraling unemployment, Israeli military curfews and widespread road closures.

The Defense Ministry said that during the meeting Ben-Eliezer ordered the army to allow medical and humanitarian traffic into Palestinian areas with the minimum delay possible.

At a separate meeting, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told Bertini that Israel is "fighting terrorism and not the Palestinian people," a ministry statement said.

Bertini noted that sometimes Israeli government policy toward the Palestinians was not always carried out by security forces on the ground, the ministry statement added.

Israel has imposed curfews and sent troops into West Bank Palestinian towns and cities to stop militants from entering Israel and launching attacks, including suicide bombings.

Palestinians trapped in their homes for days at a time call it collective punishment that has devastated the Palestinian economy.

The incursions have been accompanied by roundups of Palestinian suspects.

Palestinian prisoners' organizations estimate that Israeli is currently holding about 3,500 Palestinians who have been arrested since the outbreak of violence in September 2000. About 900 are being held under military regulations that allow for indefinite detention without trial, according to Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.

The army said that as of August 4, the latest date for which figures have been collated, a total of 2,600 Palestinians were being held in military installations.

In addition, an unspecified number are in the custody of the civilian prisons service and the Shin Bet security service.

Israeli human rights group Adalah said that the Supreme Court on Sunday granted a temporary injunction prohibiting the army from using what it calls "the neighbor procedure" in which Palestinian civilians are ordered to knock on the doors of houses slated for search and arrest operations.

The army took widespread criticism at home and abroad last week after soldiers forced a Palestinian teenager to approach the house of a Palestinian militant to tell him to surrender. The youth, Nidal Daraghmeh, 19, was shot and killed, though it was unclear who opened fire.

Adalah said the court ordered the practice suspended for seven days, while the state responds to a joint petition by several Israeli and Palestinian rights groups demanding that such use of civilians be outlawed.

A court official was unable to confirm or deny that such an injunction was issued.

Meanwhile, Israel's national bus company intends to sue Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority for damages caused by Palestinian attacks on buses, an Israeli newspaper reported Sunday.