Israel completes pullback, militants declare truce

12,00pm

UPDATE - Israeli forces pulled out of northern Gaza on Sunday after leading Palestinian militant groups declared a three-month suspension of attacks on Israelis in breakthroughs for a US-backed peace plan.

Some 50 Israeli armoured vehicles rumbled out of the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, putting into motion a Gaza pullback deal with the Palestinian Authority welcomed by Washington as an important step towards peace.

However, in a telling sign of how far hopes for peace have dimmed after three years of daily bloodletting, Beit Hanoun residents seemed oblivous to the withdrawal, preferring to stay indoors to watch a France-Cameroon soccer match on television.

Under the Gaza accord, Palestinian forces are to prevent anti-Israeli attacks in areas in which they deploy while Israeli soldiers continue to guard Jewish settlements.

In a move viewed with suspicion by Israel, Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings, announced a three-month truce that carried a long list of conditions.

The mainstream Fatah faction of President Yasser Arafat also declared a ceasefire. A Fatah official said its militant arm, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, would abide by the truce in a 33-month-old Palestinian uprising for statehood.

The developments coincided with a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories by US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to promote a "road map" to peace affirmed at a June 4 Middle East summit attended by President George W Bush.

"Anything that reduces violence is a step in the right direction," said White House spokeswoman Ashley Snee, but added "terrorist infrastructures" must be dismantled under the plan.

Reformist Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, invited to Washington by Rice, fears such confrontation could spark civil war, Palestinian officials say.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad said in a statement: "We, the factions of the Palestinian resistance...declare the following initiative...the suspension of military operations against the Zionist enemy for three months.... This initiative goes into effect from today."

The truce was conditional on a "total cessation of all forms of Zionist aggression", including Israeli military incursions, closures around Palestinian cities, a siege around Arafat's presidential compound and "assassinations".

"If this does not stop, it will be considered a violation of this truce...and then we will respond to Zionist aggression by all means available to us," said Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, a Hamas leader wounded in an Israeli assassination attempt on June 10.

Israel called the ceasefire an empty tactic aimed at giving militant groups breathing room in the face of a US diplomatic drive against them and Israeli attacks on their senior members.

Such "track-and-kill" operations seemed likely to be curtailed under the Gaza Strip pullback deal and security sources said Israel would cease lightning incursions and dismantle military checkpoints in Gaza.

In preparation for the pullbacks -- one of the steps charted by the peace plan on the path to the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005 -- Palestinian security officers toured the Gaza Strip on Sunday with their Israeli counterparts.

The officers exchanged handshakes and smiles.

The Israeli army, which occupied Beit Hanoun a month ago after rocket attacks on southern Israel, was due to hand control of Gaza's main north-south road to Palestinian security forces on Monday.

"Finally, we'll get home and see our girlfriends, mothers and brothers," a smiling Israeli soldier said.

As the last tank pulled out of Beit Hanoun, a local youngster ran behind waving a Palestinian flag in its dusty wake.

In Egypt, which has been involved in peace brokering efforts, a government source said of the ceasefire: "This three months is a test of everybody's will.

"It will give the Israelis enough time to withdraw from some areas of the occupied territories and it will give the United States and the international community the chance to move ahead with the peace process," the source said.

Syria, which has traditionally backed Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation, signalled support for the peace bid.

"Let's give some hope to the road map, to the peace process," Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara told reporters.

- REUTERS