Israeli soldiers will pull back from two towns in the West Bank in the next few hours, Israeli media reported late Monday - an apparent response to growing US demands for a halt to military action. The moves appeared unlikely to appease critics, especially Arabs.
But the White House took a cautiously optimistic view, saying: "It's a start." At the same time, Israel said it would ease restrictions on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, allowing him to meet with US Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Earlier Monday, US President Bush delivered a stern message while he was in Knoxville, Tenn. "I meant what I said to the Prime Minister of Israel. I expect there to be a withdrawal without delay."
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon began his day vowing to a special session of parliament that the mission would not be completed "until it has dismantled [Yasser] Arafat's terror infrastructure and until the murderers hiding in different places have been arrested."
Late Monday, Israeli radio said that troops would pull back from Tulkarem and Qalqilya, and the Haaretz daily said the move was aimed at "facilitating" the peace process.
"It's a start," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said.
"I hope this is not a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but a pullback," Powell said, referring to Israel's mixed signals. Still, he called it an encouraging sign. "I hope it's the beginning of further withdrawals," he added, speaking to reporters in Casablanca, Morocco, one stop in a series on his trip aimed at trying to defuse the Mideast crisis.
Powell rejected any suggestion that the Bush administration was giving Sharon more time. "He's not been getting a free ride," he said.
But NBC's David Bloom reported that withdrawal from these two strategically insignificant cities did not mean an end to Israel's fierce military sweep through the West Bank - far from it. Israel controls all but two of the major towns in the West Bank.
On Monday its helicopter gunships pounded a Palestinian refugee camp and a fire broke out during fighting near Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, while clashes erupted for a sixth straight day along Israel's northern border with Lebanon.
In his speech Monday, Sharon said Israeli forces would eventually withdraw to buffer zones in the West Bank but added that "the places we leave must have a responsible Palestinian leadership that will take over the areas."
Sharon appeared to be suggesting that he would only do business with Palestinians not affiliated with Arafat's Palestinian Authority, which he has branded a terrorist entity. Arafat has been confined to his West Bank compound for days, surrounded by Israeli forces.
Turning to the Arab world, Sharon said he was willing to meet with Arab leaders without preconditions to discuss a comprehensive peace agreement. He said a recent pan-Arab call for Israel's withdrawal from all occupied Arab lands in exchange for comprehensive peace had "positive elements."
But during a one-hour speech frequently interrupted by heckling by Arab Israeli legislators, Sharon said Israel cannot accept a return of Palestinian refugees, an issue Arab nations say must be resolved before they establish normal relations with Israel.
In another apparent diplomatic concession on Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said that Israel would ease a quarantine on Arafat - by letting him meet Powell, who is in the region seeking to defuse the conflict.
Asked in a BBC interview if Powell would meet Arafat, Peres said, "Yes," and suggested the encounter could take place in the besieged Palestinian leader's Ramallah headquarters.
"When we check out the different possibilities in the present circumstances, Ramallah is going to be the place," Peres told the BBC's Newsnight current affairs program.
MODEST EXPECTATIONS
But Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said Sharon was intent on wrecking Powell's mission. "Sharon has ended Powell's visit before he comes here," Erekat said. "He is telling Powell don't come because 'we have finished everything, we are setting up buffer zones, we will continue the occupation and we will not end our operations.'"
On Sunday, Powell, who spoke with Sharon earlier in the day, played down hopes that his Mideast mission would bring an end to the bloodshed.
"I'm not going to come back at the end of this trip with a peace treaty in hand. I'm not even sure I'll have a cease-fire in hand. But that will be my goal, to try to help both sides out of this tragic situation in which they find themselves," Powell said.
On Monday, after meeting with Morocco's King Mohammed VI, Powell demanded "a clear statement from Israel that they are beginning to withdraw" from Palestinian territories and "to do it now."
The Moroccan monarch is viewed as a moderate in the Arab world, but he indicated frustration over the US mediation efforts to date. "Don't you think that it would be more important to go to Jerusalem first?" the king asked in remarks overheard by reporters.
Powell is not expected to visit Israel until the end of the week. In the meantime, he was scheduled to meet in Morocco with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, and his trip also includes meetings with President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and King Abdullah II in Jordan. He also will visit Spain, where he will meet with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and European leaders.
FIGHT TO THE END
The heaviest fighting Monday raged in the West Bank city of Nablus and the Jenin refugee camp, where hundreds of gunmen have been battling Israeli soldiers. Israeli officials estimated that more than 100 Palestinians have been killed in the Jenin camp.
The armed men "seem to have decided to fight to the last, to make the battle as bloody as possible," said the Israeli commander in the area, Brig. Gen. Eyal Shline.
He said many houses in the camp were booby-trapped and that several men with explosives strapped to their bodies have blown themselves up in suicide attacks.
Before daybreak Monday, Israeli attack helicopters began firing missiles at the camp after militants ignored calls to surrender. Jamal Abdel Salam, a camp resident and activist in the Islamic militant Hamas group, said army bulldozers flattened homes and that dozen of houses had been destroyed.
By early afternoon, Israeli forces controlled almost the entire camp, the army said. The Israeli military said about 150 men put down their weapons and emerged from the camp early Monday. Abdel Salam said only women, children and the elderly left the camp. The militants were staying put, ready to fight to the death, he said.
In Nablus, the West Bank's largest city, smoke rose from the Old City, a densely populated maze of stone buildings and narrow streets. Army officials said troops controlled about half of the Old City and that dozens of gunmen surrendered Monday.
CHURCH ON FIRE
In Bethlehem, Israeli troops ringing the Church of the Nativity exchanged fire with armed Palestinians holed up in the shrine, built over the grotto where tradition says Jesus was born. A senior Israeli army officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said two border policemen who were shot and wounded by Palestinians threw a smoke grenade into the compound, sparking a fire.
A Palestinian policeman who was trying to extinguish the fire was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper, a fellow policeman in the compound said.
Israeli officials and senior Franciscans in Rome, whose clerics are among those inside, appeared increasingly at odds as the standoff stretched into a seventh day.
Sharon told parliament that soldiers would surround the church until the gunmen release the clerics, whom he described as hostages, and surrender. The Franciscans accused Israel of violating a pledge not to attack the church. Church officials said the clerics were not hostages and would remain in the compound.
More than 200 armed Palestinians have been holed up in the church compound for seven days, ringed by Israeli forces. Israeli soldiers have been using loudspeakers to demand that the gunmen surrender, but they have refused to come out. The army has said troops would not storm the church.
NEW FRONTS IN THE CONFLICT
In a related development, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein announced Monday that his country would cut all oil exports for 30 days, or until Israel withdraws from Palestinian territories.
Iraq had called on Arabs last week to cut oil supplies as a way of pressuring the United States to force Israel to end its military incursions into Palestinian territory.
Also on Monday, clashes resumed along Israel's northern frontier as Hizballah guerrillas in Lebanon fired on Israeli positions, provoking airstrikes and artillery fire a day after the United States and United Nations warned the two countries of the dangers of reviving the war along their border.
Heavy, black smoke billowed from an Israeli post in the disputed Chebaa Farms area, and Israeli warplanes fired rockets at targets near the Lebanese village of Kfar Chouba and Hasbaya, a town five miles north of the border. Israeli guns also shelled other areas.
Israel called up additional reserve units to serve near the border Monday and sent warplanes over Lebanon, where they broke the sound barrier over the capital, Beirut - a familiar move at times of heightened tension between the neighbors.
(China Daily April 9, 2002)
