Palestinians say Israel changed plans, call meeting a failure

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- The Palestinians and Israel agreed Wednesday on a plan for a gradual Israeli withdrawal from areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip but the deal appeared to flounder later in the day when Palestinian officials said Israel had changed the terms.

Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer laid out a proposal last week under which Israeli troops would gradually begin withdrawing from Palestinian-ruled parts of Gaza and the West Bank town of Bethlehem, in exchange for Palestinian guarantees that no attacks would be launched from these areas.

The Palestinian Cabinet accepted the proposal on Wednesday and Palestinian security officials and members of Israel's Shin Bet security services met later in the day to map out the details.

However, Palestinian officials emerged from the meeting and accused Israel of changing its offer. They declared the session a failure.

Calls placed to Israeli officials were not immediately returned.

Approval provisional

Regardless, the Cabinet approval had been provisional pending the outcome of the meeting, and obstacles were still likely even if it were finalized.

The dispute came as Israeli tanks and armored vehicles rumbled deeper into the northern Gaza Strip for the second night in a row, firing machine guns and at least one shell to knock out the electric transformer in the town of Beit Lahiya, Palestinian security officials and residents said.

Troops were going house to house, conducting searches, said Mayor Mohammed al-Masri. There were no immediate reports of injuries; an incursion of more than two hours in the same area early Wednesday left one Palestinian policemen dead.

Earlier, top officials of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement denounced the Cabinet decision, saying it had been taken without their consultation and amounted to a betrayal of the Palestinian struggle for the past 22 months of fighting.

Criticism from Washington

In Washington, meanwhile, a senior Palestinian delegation arrived for talks with Secretary of State Colin Powell and other U.S. officials.

The delegation's head, Saeb Erekat, bristled at a blunt critique of the Palestinian leadership by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld said Tuesday the Palestinian Authority was entangled with terror and that he doubted Israel could turn over territory to it because of its poor track record.

Rumsfeld also referred to the West Bank as "so-called occupied territory," signaling he does not share the Bush administration's view of Israel's presence on the land, captured by Israel in the 1967 war.

After the meeting between Palestinian and Israeli security officials, Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh said Israel had imposed new conditions on the Palestinians in the talks that were "impossible to accept or even to implement."

He wouldn't elaborate except to say Israel hadn't mentioned withdrawing from Bethlehem in the talks, just Gaza, and he declared the meeting a failure.

Land occupation

Israeli troops have been holding some Palestinian-run areas of Gaza since sometime after the outbreak of fighting nearly two years ago, and reoccupied seven of the West Bank's eight major towns and cities in June in an attempt to prevent attacks on Israelis.

Fatah's rejection of the pullout plan -- presented by Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer -- cast a shadow over any potential deal. Fatah officials said the group's central committee -- made up of 17 Palestinians whose support is critical to Arafat -- would meet Thursday to discuss the decision.

"The Ben-Eliezer plan is like treating cancer with aspirin," said Jibril Rajoub, a central committee member and the recently fired head of preventive security in the West Bank.

He said Fatah now had to act on its own to represent the true needs of Palestinians.