Palestinians hail deal on WB pullouts

The announcement of the breakthrough came after a second round of talks in 24 hours between Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan and Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz.

"At the meeting between Dahlan and Mofaz, it was agreed that Israel will withdraw from four Palestinian cities in the next two weeks," Dahlan spokesman Elias Zananieri told AFP, naming the cities as Jericho, Ramallah, Qalqilya and Tulkarem.

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No Israeli officials were immediately available to confirm the pullback pledge, which came after Mofaz had refused to offer more than a single redeployment from the small towns of Jericho and Qalqilya two weeks ago.

But a report on Israeli public radio said that, while Israel would transfer control of Jericho and Qalqilya next week, it would hand over Ramallah and Tulkarem only if the Palestinians met certain conditions.

These were an end to anti-Israeli attacks and demands that the Palestinians draw up a detailed plan on fighting "terror", and deal with the complex issue of individuals wanted by Israel, the radio said without elaborating.

Army radio meanwhile said that Dahlan had undertaken to collect weapons from Palestinian militant groups and identify their sources of funding.

But he did not commit himself to breaking up "terror infrastructure", as demanded repeatedly by Israel and the United States, the radio said.

The apparent compromise came after Dahlan met Washington's chief Middle East peace monitor, John Wolf, earlier Friday to urge more Israeli action to build confidence on the ground.

The Palestinian leadership insists it cannot meet Israeli demands to take on the militant groups while its army remains in occupation of Palestinian towns.

It was the latest in a string of Israeli gestures to the Palestinians during the day as the two sides sought to prevent a resurgence of violence from overwhelming a seven-week-old truce by Palestinian militants which had resulted in a sharp fall in casualties on both sides.

Israel also freed scores of Palestinian prisoners whose release had been delayed, lifted restrictions imposed on the West Bank town of Bethlehem and cleared the reopening of two closed colleges in the flashpoint city of Hebron.

Israeli officials said they were also considering lifting briefly a 19-month-old siege on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's West Bank base in Ramallah so he could join the mourning for his late sister in the Gaza Strip, although there was no word of any decision after the evening's talks.

The moves came amid mounting fears of a new spiral of bloodshed after a local commander of the radical group Islamic Jihad was killed Thursday by Israeli forces in Hebron.

Islamic Jihad vowed to avenge the death, which came just two days after two Palestinian suicide bombings killed two Israelis in reprisal for a bloody Israeli army raid last Friday on the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

The round of attacks threatened a precarious three-month truce declared by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian militant groups on June 29.

On Friday, the leading Cairo daily Al-Ahram reported that Egypt, which was instrumental in convincing the Palestinian factions to cease fire, was sending a high-ranking delegation to the territories to shore up the truce.