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U.S. Calls On Israel To Withdraw From Hebron
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Israeli troops and Palestinian boys |
WASHINGTON, April 29 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – As U.S. and British troops began meetings with Palestinian officials, the United States said Monday that Israel should withdraw its troops from the West Bank town of Al-Khalil (Hebron) after its troops seized the town in an overnight operation that left at least eight Palestinians dead.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said during a briefing that the United States opposed any incursions into the Palestinian territories and noted that that position had been made clear to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
"We believe that Israel should refrain from further incursions and that's a consistent position that we have made clear to Prime Minister Sharon," he told reporters.
"We think they should refrain and withdraw," Boucher said. "Finish their withdrawal and refrain from further incursions. Wherever they are in we've always said they said they would withdraw from."
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"That means finishing the withdrawal from any areas they're in now and refraining from further incursions."
Aside from the death toll, the Hebron operation wounded at least 20 people.
However, further illustrating Israeli defiance to international calls for an end to its aggressions, an Israeli army spokesman claimed the Hebron operation would be "limited in time" although did not say how quickly the latest invasion would end.
Hebron is home to thousands of Palestinians who live on the outskirts of a heavily-armed enclave of about 400 radical Jewish settlers who have been reported to have attacked Palestinians living nearby.
Israel also invaded Rafah in the Gaza Strip earlier Monday, wounding a fifteen year old boy.
Meanwhile, U.S. and British security experts began talks, in Ramallah, Monday with two Palestinian officials on a U.S.-brokered plan to lift the siege on Yasser Arafat's West Bank compound, a senior Palestinian official told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo and Mohammad Rashid, Arafat's economic adviser, met the U.S. and British teams at an unknown location in the West Bank town at around 8:45 pm (1745 GMT), the source said.
The aim was to discuss the technical details of transferring six wanted Palestinians, holed up in Arafat's compound, to a jail in the West Bank town of Jericho where they will be placed under international guard.
In return, Israel will end its month-long siege of Arafat.
The meeting included security experts from the British and U.S. consulates in Jerusalem, the source said.
Although it was not initially clear exactly how many U.S. and British officials had flown in for the meeting, a British consulate spokesman earlier said two Britons had arrived in the country and a third was expected to arrive later in the evening.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem refused to comment on the talks.
Earlier, Abed Rabbo had said the meeting would take place in the afternoon, but for unknown reasons, it was delayed.
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