Israel will pull out of at least one Palestinian West Bank city by the end of the week and possibly as soon as Tuesday night if Palestinian security forces take control of the area, an Israeli official said. ''It could be in the next few days, today, tomorrow,'' Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, told reporters on Tuesday. ''I think you'll see another city perhaps at the end of the week unless there's an outburst of terrorist activity.''
Gissin said army commanders were talking to their Palestinian counterparts to try to hammer out an agreement by which Israeli forces would leave the Palestinian-ruled West Bank cities of Ramallah or Tulkarm in the coming days. Israel reoccupied six Palestinian-controlled areas after Palestinian radicals assassinated far-right tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi on October 17 to retaliate for Israel's assassination of their leader in August.
Israeli forces left Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Qalqilya in the past week under intense US pressure. The United States wants to calm 13 months of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in hopes of bolstering Arab and Islamic support for its anti-terror war.
Bureau Report