AL KHALIL, West Bank, April 9 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Two Palestinians were killed early Tuesday, April 9, by Israeli occupation soldiers who took over the village of Dura, south of the West Bank city of Al-Khalil (Hebron), Palestinian officials said.

Israeli tanks, aided by helicopters, occupied the village of Dura in the southern West Bank early Tuesday, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The area has now been totally taken over by Israeli forces, Palestinian sources said.

An Israeli occupation army spokesman, meanwhile, confirmed that troops had launched an operation on Dura with the aim of capturing wanted Palestinian activists.

The news of the fresh incursion came as Israeli occupation troops pulled out of the West Bank towns of Qalqilya and Tulkarem in the north of the West Bank.

Israeli occupation said said its operations were fully completed in these areas.

The Israeli troops completed their withdrawal from the Palestinian West Bank towns of Qalqilya and Tulkarem at dawn Tuesday, but will continue to surround both places, a military spokesman announced.

"The Israeli forces have left Qalqilya and Tulkarem, their mission in the two towns complete, and they have been deployed in new positions around the two places which are surrounded," the spokesman said in a statement.

Palestinian witnesses had confirmed earlier that the withdrawal was underway.

The Israeli spokesman stressed that military operations were continuing in other West Bank areas. The occupation army also launched a new operation in the village of Dura south of Hebron "to capture wanted Palestinians and to seize arms".

Israeli troops also completed the takeover of Nablus in the northern West Bank after several days of fighting.

"Several hundred Palestinians were arrested, including some on the wanted list," the spokesman said.

Following the military withdrawals from Qalqilya and Tulkarem, Israeli forces remain in place in the Palestinian West Bank towns of Ramallah, Bethlehem and Jenin, as well as Nablus, after launching incursions on March 29.

Hawkish Israeli premier Ariel Sharon yesterday laid out his own political initiative, which he presented in his address to the Knesset. He proposed a "political process without Arafat." He knows the administration still regards Arafat as the legitimate elected leader of the Palestinian people, but he has taken into consideration the U.S. Bush's blunt language, which in effect called for a new leadership on the Palestinian side, Israel’s Ha’aretz daily reported.

According to Sharon's plan, the Israeli occupation forces will leave the areas it occupied in the last 11 days, and "a responsible Palestinian leadership" will replace the army. The Israeli army will redeploy into "security zones" to be determined by the government.

Sharon made clear that the Oslo agreement is dead and buried and that Israel will determine its security zones, the paper said.

Sharon, meanwhile, has authorized four senior Palestinian officials to meet Yasser Arafat in the West Bank headquarters where he is besieged by troops, Israeli public radio reported Tuesday.

Sharon will allow top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat, Palestine Liberation Organisation number two Mahmud Abbas, Colonel Mohammad Dahlan, the head of Palestinian security in the Gaza Strip and Ahmed Qorei, head of the Palestinian parliament, to meet the Palestinian leader, the radio reported.