Troops pull out but Arafat still encircled

RAMALLAH - Israel withdrew its forces from most of the West Bank city of Ramallah yesterday but says it will continue to besiege Yasser Arafat's compound until suspected assassins holed up inside are handed over.

The Israeli Army said that its forces had pulled out of all of Ramallah except Arafat's headquarters and that troops would complete a withdrawal from the West Bank city of Nablus today. Troops would encircle the city to enforce a tight closure.

Israel's Defence Minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, said Israeli forces would stay outside Arafat's compound until three people it suspects of assassinating a cabinet minister last year and a suspected arms smuggler were extradited to Israel.

"We are demanding these people be extradited so they can be put on trial," Ben-Eliezer said.

Israel also wants Arafat's chief financial officer, Fuad Shubaki, whom it suspects of smuggling arms from Iran into the Palestinian territories.

Ben-Eliezer declined to comment on whether Israel would storm the compound if the standoff continued, saying only that Israel would "find a way that will be acceptable".

Palestinians have rejected extraditing the men but Arafat offered on Saturday to try the suspects in a Palestinian court.

Witnesses said tanks had departed from three strategic points in the centre, north and western parts of Nablus and other Army vehicles had quit the nearby Balata refugee camp.

The Israeli Government promised to co-operate with a United Nations Security Council mission investigating its crushing assault on the Jenin refugee camp.

The Army said yesterday that it had left Jenin and the camp but remained deployed around them to keep "terrorists" from slipping out to Israel. It slapped a curfew on three villages close to the "Green Line" boundary.

International officials have urged Israel to lift curfews where fighting has stopped to ease access for relief agencies and help civilians start to get on with their lives.

The Army vacated two other West Bank towns last week but continues to encircle them.

Israel says the same strategy will apply to further withdrawals, with the option of new raids to catch militants who slip through the cracks.

United States President George W. Bush said Israel must press ahead with its withdrawal from Palestinian cities but did not repeat earlier demands for an immediate end to its offensive.

"All parties must realise that the only long-term solution is for two states - Israel and Palestine - to live side by side in security and peace."

"This will require hard choices and real leadership by Israelis and Palestinians, and their Arab neighbours," Bush said.

Palestinians said they hoped the UN Security Council's unanimous decision to send a "fact-finding" team to the Jenin camp could spawn an international criminal trial of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other senior figures.

"We have nothing to hide and we will gladly co-operate with this UN inquiry," Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Sharon, said after the US forced a dilution of an initial council resolution demanding an "investigation" into a "massacre".

Israel has vigorously denied Palestinian allegations of a massacre in Jenin camp.

The US assistant secretary of state for the region, William Burns, called Jenin a "terrible human tragedy".

A Jenin hospital official said the body count in the refugee camp had risen to 39 but added that it could climb to between 200 and 400. Israel says about 70 Palestinians died, mostly fighters. Twenty-three Israeli troops were killed in Jenin.

Thousands of Israeli supporters rallied in Sydney yesterday, insisting Israel had a right to defend itself against terrorist suicide bombings.

Jewish leaders told the emotional crowd Israel was in the grip of a Palestinian terror campaign and was justified in fighting back.

Stephen Rothman, president of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, said Palestinian suicide bombers had killed more than 90 people in the past four weeks.

"We will not once more stand by while our people are murdered," he said.

Draped in Israeli Star of David flags, supporters clutched photographs of suicide bombing victims and carried banners saying, "No reconciliation with terrorism" and "Support Israel's right to survival".

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