Israel backs off on hardline tactics

JERUSALEM - Sixteen West Bank Palestinians facing deportation by Israel to the Gaza Strip withdrew their legal action against the move after receiving an appeal guarantee, say Israeli security sources.

Israel did not issue a formal explanation for the decision, which could cool the controversy about its plans to deport relatives of militants, its most recent counter-measure against a 21-month-old Palestinian uprising for independence in the occupied territories.

In a separate glimmer of goodwill, Israel has agreed to pay the Palestinians 10 per cent of the two billion shekels ($892.25 million) tax revenue it owes, on condition that monitors ensure the money does not go towards paying for attacks.

That decision came hours after Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told Palestinian leaders that Palestinian violence was delaying steps to relieve civilian suffering in the West Bank.

Palestinians have been locked in their homes, unable to work and short of supplies, since Israeli troops stormed into West Bank cities after suicide attacks in June killed 26 people.

In the latest clash, two Palestinians were killed and two Israeli soldiers wounded yesterday near a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip.



In another incident, a bomb placed on railway tracks near the central Israeli town of Rehovot exploded as a double-decker passenger train passed by, wounding its driver, police and rescue workers said.

The 16 petitioners were among 22 male relatives of suspected Palestinian militants rounded up by the Israeli Army near the West Bank city of Nablus on Saturday, after two Palestinian suicide bombers struck in Tel Aviv and gunmen ambushed a bus near a Jewish settlement, killing 12 people in all.

Israel - which also razed two family homes in the swoop - said the 22 men would be deported to the Gaza Strip as a deterrent to future attacks.

The United States and the United Nations have criticised the tactics, which Israel used in the 1987-93 uprising, and the Palestinians have denounced them as a "war crime". There has also been domestic dissent.

Israeli security sources said earlier that Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein and the Army had agreed that deportation from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip would be an option only where there was proof that family members were linked to plotting for attacks.

It was not immediately clear to what degree culpability had been established for the 22 detainees, nor what legal action the six men who had not dropped petitions might be pursuing.

- REUTERS

Feature: Middle East

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