Israel withdrew its troops from Ramallah on Friday, ending a brief reoccupation of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's West Bank base as a US mediator geared up to give peace another chance.
A Reuters correspondent saw dozens of tanks heading south out of Ramallah early on Friday. Israeli military and security sources said the pullout would be completed by morning in accordance with an order by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Arafat, confined to his headquarters in the city by the Israeli military for three months, called the order a trick.
The army entered Ramallah, the Palestinians' commercial and political hub in the West Bank, on Monday in what it said was part of a general sweep against militants who have killed scores of Israelis during a 17-month-old uprising.
US peace envoy Anthony Zinni on Thursday began his third trip to the region since November to seek implementation of a US-brokered ceasefire and truce-to-talks plan drawn up by an international committee under ex-US senator George Mitchell.
Sharon hosted Zinni in Jerusalem, and told reporters: "The main effort now is to achieve a ceasefire, and I hope that with combined effort we will manage to achieve this."
But Arafat, in an interview with Reuters, questioned Sharon's sincerity. "He accepted it (the Mitchell plan) officially but on the other side of his thoughts and imagination he wanted to continue his military plans," Arafat said.
Israel and the United States have said Arafat must do more to rein in militants and halt attacks on Israelis. Just prior to Monday's invasion of Ramallah, Sharon called off tanks that had kept the Palestinian leader at his headquarters there since a wave of suicide bombings in December.
Arafat said the United States should put more pressure on Israel to help Zinni secure a ceasefire during his trip. Arafat was to meet Zinni in Ramallah on Friday evening.
(China Daily March 15, 2002)
