Monday October 29, 2001

BETHLEHEM, West Bank - Israeli forces began pulling out of two West Bank towns yesterday, despite an attack by Palestinian gunmen on a bus stop in the north of the country that killed four Israelis.

The shooting attack in Hadera and a drive-by shooting earlier in the day that killed an Israeli soldier had thrown the pullback into question, with Israeli officials demanding a cease-fire before they would withdraw.

Raanan Gissin, an aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the redeployment operation had begun. He said the Palestinians had taken steps and "started to comply with their obligations."

Witnesses said tanks were still within Bethlehem and the nearby town of Beit Jalla but had begun moving back toward Israeli territory.

The pullouts from the two towns were to be test cases for Israeli withdrawals from four other towns it entered after the Oct. 17 assassination of Rehavam Zeevi, an ultra nationalist Israeli Cabinet minister, by Palestinian militants. The other towns are Jenin, Qalqilya, Ramallah and Tulkarem.

Israel has demanded the Palestinians enforce a cease-fire for the pullouts to take place. The Palestinians say they should take place unconditionally.

Israel said it had entered parts of the towns to hunt for Zeevi's killers and to prevent further attacks on Israelis - but it came under heavy criticism from the United States and other nations.

The Israeli incursions represented the most extensive Israeli military action in 13 months of fighting. They left 38 Palestinians dead, failed to net all of Zeevi's killers and angered the Bush administration, which worried that further unrest would undermine support among Arab nations for its anti-terrorism campaign.

Sunday's attack took place when two gunmen - who were identified as Palestinian policemen by the Israeli army - drove through Hadera, north of Tel Aviv, police said.

"Two weapons were aimed at the two sides of the road and then terrorists opened fire," the area police chief, Yaakov Borovsky, told Israel Radio.

Plainclothes police detectives, who had been deployed in extra numbers because of fears of an attack, shot and killed one gunman who had gotten out of the car and another Palestinian who remained inside, witness Danny Kerem told Army Radio.

"I heard bursts of fire and I thought it was lightning," said another witness, Yaakov Roth-Levy. "I saw two people sitting with bowed heads and one lying on the ground. A red car was being fired on. I saw the terrorist fall out of it."

The militant Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility for the attack in a videotaped message and identified the attackers as Youssef Sweitat, 22 and Nidal al-Jabali, 23. They were shown standing in front of a banner with Islamic Jihad written on it and a picture of a 10-year-old Palestinian girl killed last week.

Military spokesman Lt. Col. Olivier Rafovitch said the two attackers were Palestinian policemen, as well as being members of Islamic Jihad. "This is very worrisome," he said.

Earlier yesterday, gunmen killed an Israeli soldier in a drive-by shooting in Israel near the border with the West Bank. An anonymous caller told The Associated Press that the Al Aqsa Brigade, affiliated with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, attacked an Israeli military vehicle as revenge for Saturday's killing of a Fatah activist in nearby Tulkarem.

Israeli military officers and Palestinian security officials met in Bethlehem after the attacks. Jibril Rajoub, the Palestinian West Bank security chief, said the Israelis had promised to pull out yesterday night. Israel postponed the pullback Saturday after clashes broke out in Bethlehem, saying the Palestinians had violated an agreement worked out with U.S. officials calling for a cease-fire. The Palestinians said the pullback was supposed to have been unconditional.

The Palestinian leadership strongly condemned the attack in Hadera. A written statement said they had ordered security commanders to pursue those who planned it and bring them to trial "for violating the cease-fire and the Palestinian commitments and the Palestinian national interest."

"We are committed to the cease-fire which was declared and to the peace process," Arafat told reporters in Gaza after meeting Austrian Social Democratic Party leader Alfred Gusenbauer.

Palestinian Cabinet minister Ziad Abu-Zayyad said the Israeli occupations were worsening the unrest in the West Bank.

"Continuation of the presence of the Israeli army around Palestinian cities and villages and refugee camps is a continuation of the provocation," he told Israel Army Radio.