RAMALLAH, West Bank (REUTERS)–Israel withdrew its troops from Ramallah Friday, ending a brief reoccupation of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s West Bank base as a U.S. mediator geared up to give peace another chance.
A correspondent saw dozens of tanks heading south out of Ramallah early Friday. Israeli military and security sources said the pullout would be completed by morning in accordance with an order by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Arafat, confined to his headquarters by the Israeli military for three months, called the order a trick.
The army entered Ramallah, the Palestinians’ commercial and political hub in the West Bank, Monday in what it said was part of a general sweep against militants who have killed scores of Israelis during a 17-month-old uprising.
U.S. peace envoy Anthony Zinni Thursday began his third trip to the region since November to seek implementation of a U.S.-brokered cease-fire and truce-to-talks plan drawn up by an international committee under ex-U.S. senator George Mitchell.
Sharon hosted Zinni in Jerusalem and told reporters, “The main effort now is to achieve a cease-fire, and I hope that with combined effort we will manage to achieve this.”
But Arafat, in an interview with Reuters, questioned Sharon’s sincerity.
“He accepted [the Mitchell plan] officially, but on the other side of his thoughts and imagination he wanted to continue his military plans,” Arafat said.
Just prior to Monday’s invasion of Ramallah, Sharon called off tanks that had kept the Palestinian leader at his headquarters there since a wave of suicide bombings in December.
Arafat said the United States should put more pressure on Israel to help Zinni secure a cease-fire during his trip. Arafat was to meet Zinni in Ramallah Friday evening.
The Israeli invasion of Ramallah, involving roughly 150 tanks, was its biggest military offensive since the 1967 Middle East war, in which the West Bank and Gaza Strip were occupied.
The area saw more than 17 months of violence, which has claimed more than 1,400 lives, reach new heights.
Saying militants from Ramallah were responsible for recent bombings and shooting attacks in Jerusalem just to the south, a senior army commander said the operation was necessary to create a security “wall” between the cities.
A senior Israeli diplomatic source said after the withdrawal the army would maintain a cordon around Ramallah.
Earlier Thursday, Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said the Israelis were digging trenches on Ramallah streets “to impose an internal siege” before leaving.
Reuters television footage showed a bulldozer chewing up asphalt across one street and piling rubble into mounds.
The army said it had kept away from Arafat’s headquarters, but an Arafat spokesman said troops fired at it Thursday.
“Six Israeli jeeps opened fire with their machine guns at Arafat’s office. Arafat’s guards returned fire, and a 20-minute gun battle ensued before the Israelis withdrew,” the spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdainah, told Reuters.
