BETHLEHEM, West Bank, June 1 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Israeli occupation army reentered the Palestinian self-rule town of Bethlehem in the West Bank early on Saturday, Palestinian witnesses said, news agencies reported.

They said that Israeli infantry units, backed by armored vehicles, had entered the Dheishe refugee camp there, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The reported incursion came just over a day after Israeli troops pulled out of Bethlehem, which lies south of Jerusalem, after a four-day reoccupation in which the Israeli army said they abducted 42 Palestinians. The army had continued to surround the town.

Late on Friday Israeli troops backed by dozens of armored vehicles also re-occupied the town of Tulkarem in the northern West Bank, entering the town from three directions and firing as they did so, Palestinian officials told AFP.

Troops also took control of two nearby refugee camps, that of Tulkarem and Nur el-Shams, and imposed a curfew on the areas, the town's governor Ezzedine Sharif said, without providing details on any casualties.

The Israeli army earlier made a large-scale incursion into the West Bank town of Nablus, reoccupying part of the Palestinian self-rule town and the Balata refugee camp, Palestinian security and Israeli military sources said.

Israel claims the raids are part of efforts to thwart militants planning to attack its citizens.

The Palestinians say the incursions are aimed at further undermining their autonomy, already weakened by Israel's massive incursions into West Bank cities last month.

In another development, the British daily newspaper, the Guardian, said Friday that Israeli and Palestinian figures met in England with key figures in the Northern Ireland peace process for three days of high level talks on the situation in the Middle East.

The talks brought together former IRA commander, now Northern Ireland education minister, Martin McGuinness with two Palestinian ministers and the speaker and deputy speaker of the Israeli parliament, the paper said.

In three days of discussion, which ended Thursday, McGuinness and other leading Irish politicians urged both sides in the Middle East to seek outside help in moving the conflict out of its impasse.

"If you had said 10 years ago that there would be peace in Northern Ireland or South Africa, many would have been extremely skeptical, but there is no reason why the Middle East should not take the same road," McGuinness told the paper.

The Israelis and Palestinians said they had learnt lessons they would take back to the region, according to the same source.

The meetings discussed the creation of a shadow Israeli-Palestinian government as an alternative to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's coalition government, the daily said.

They also drafted a peace plan fleshing out earlier proposals and set for the first time an exact figure of how many of the 3.5 million Palestinians will be given the right to return.

The main points about how to secure peace will be signed by key Israeli figures on both sides and published, the paper added.

The talks, chaired by Guardian journalist Jonathan Freedland, were held at Weston House, near Stafford, central England, where Northern Ireland negotiations were conducted last year.

Israel was represented by Knesset speaker Avraham Burg, former army chief General Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, former justice minister Yossi Beilin, and deputy-speaker Naomi Chazan.

Burg and Beilin are both members of the Israeli Labor party which is in the coalition government. There was no one present from Sharon's Likud party.

The Palestinian side included minister without portfolio Nabeel Kassis and former peace negotiators Salim Tamari and Yezid Sayigh.