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Israeli Troops Pull Out of Beit Jala Amid More Violence
BEIT JALA, West Bank, Aug 30 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israeli troops withdrew from the autonomous Palestinian West Bank town of Beit Jala Thursday, putting an end to Israel's longest invasion of the 11-month uprising, as violence continued in the territories.
Tanks, jeeps and armored personnel carriers moved swiftly out of the little town, key areas of which were controversially occupied for some 50 hours, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent at the scene.
The pullout was met by joyful outbursts from Beit Jala residents, and Palestinian fighters let off volleys of gunfire into the air.
However, Israeli officials warned that army units posted at the entrance to Beit Jala remained ready to return should Palestinian gunfire in the area resume.
The green light for the troop withdrawal was given during a three-hour overnight meeting of the Israeli inner cabinet, chaired By Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a political source in Jerusalem said.
Israel and the Palestinians agreed Wednesday to a ceasefire in Beit Jala, with Israel saying its forces would withdraw overnight if Palestinian shooting on the nearby Jewish settlement at Gilo, in annexed east Jerusalem, were halted.
After the meeting, Sharon telephoned U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to inform him of the decision, the political source said.
The United States had been strongly critical of the Israeli invasions into Palestinian autonomous territory.
Powell swiftly rang Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, to tell him the news, according to a Palestinian official. Arafat urged him to put pressure on Israel to stop the invasions into Palestinian autonomous zones, the source added.
Arafat's top aide, Nabil Abu Rudeina also told AFP the Palestinians urged "the international community and the United States to pressure the Israeli government to put an end to its aggression against the Palestinian people and territories".
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Wednesday that Washington opposed Israeli invasions into Palestinian territories, particularly if they appeared to be open-ended or permanent.
On Thursday, Boucher also told ABC News that Israel might be violating a U.S. law requiring that U.S.-supplied weapons be used only for defensive purposes.
Meanwhile, violence continued to flare in the territories, as two Palestinians and one Israeli were killed in separate incidents.
An Israeli civilian was shot dead near the West Bank town of Ramallah, police sources said.
A Palestinian civilian, Daud Salah Sahmawi, 32, was killed by a live bullet in the chest when clashes between Palestinian forces and Israeli soldiers erupted east of the West Bank town of Tulkarem, hospital sources said.
The same sources later reported that a Palestinian doctor, Musa Safi Kdemat, 50, was shot in the stomach and killed as he was giving first aid to the wounded when fighting broke out between Israeli forces and Palestinians in the West Bank town of Hebron.
The clashes, which also injured 10, came after Palestinian police sources said the Israeli army carried out an incursion into Hebron, an autonomous Palestinian sector, a report denied later by the army.
The police said the tanks rumbled in following the funeral of Abud Dabassi, a member of Arafat's elite Force 17 guards, who was gunned down in a clash Wednesday night between the army and Palestinians in the divided city.
The sources said 23 people had so far been injured in the fighting.
The deaths brought to 758 the number of people killed since the outbreak last September of the Palestinian uprising, including 580 Palestinians and 156 Israelis.
Meanwhile, Israeli troops were on high alert along the border with Lebanon, fearing a major attack by the Lebanese Hezbollah group, a military source said.
Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin told AFP that Israel had "concrete information that Hezbollah is waiting on the opportune moment to carry out an attack".
Hezbollah fired four times on Israeli warplanes overflying Lebanese air space Thursday - an Israeli practice the United Nations slams as a violation of the U.N.-marked border between the two countries.
Meanwhile, in the Gaza Strip, a four-year-old Palestinian was seriously wounded when he was hit by live bullets during an exchange of fire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian forces near the Karni crossing point with Israel, Palestinian medical and security sources said.
Separately, Palestinian security sources said Israeli bulldozers razed six houses in the Brazil refugee camp near the Gaza town of Rafah during an incursion of more than an hour overnight. Four Palestinians were wounded in that incident.
In Rafah, Israel's occupation army blocked a U.N. official from reaching refugee camps in the city to inspect the destruction caused by Israeli forces.
Peter Hanson, the Commissioner General for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, was denied access to the camp but managed to reach through a detour, reported the Palestinian news agency WAFA.
Israeli tanks stopped UNRWA delegation vehicles at the Al Fakharee area and called through loud speakers for Hanson to leave.
Speaking to the reporters, Hanson said: "We came here to find out exactly what happened during the last few days in the camps and we were not allowed in by the soldiers. They even refused to speak to us and find out who we were despite the clear signs on our cars."
Hanson said that it is their right as a humanitarian organization affiliated to the United Nations to work and operate with freedom in the area without obstacles according to agreements with the Israeli government, reported WAFA.
During his tour, Hanson urged Palestinians and Israelis to reach a peace agreement as he inspected homes demolished during the last two weeks in Rafah. He spoke to residents in the area and inspected the emergency relief given to families in the area.
In Gaza, Palestinians urged the international community not to ease pressure on Israel.
"We call on the international community and the United States to pressure the Israeli government to put an end to its aggression against the Palestinian people and territories," Abu Rudeina told AFP.
"We demand Israel's withdrawal from the zone it occupies in Rafah" in the southern Gaza Strip, he added, in reference to the siege on the hospital by Israeli tanks since their invasion Tuesday.
He also called for a pursuit of international efforts aimed at putting an end to the cycle of bloodshed.
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