Jericho pullout begins

Jericho pullout begins

JERICHO, Occupied West Bank (AFP): Israeli police began to withdraw from Jericho yesterday, removing equipment from the station in the town center, witnesses said.

Policemen were seen removing office equipment from the building which is scheduled to be handed over to the new Palestinian police force.

An police spokesman confirmed that the material had been taken out but said the Israeli personnel would remain in place in the West Bank town for the time being.

Israel is due to withdraw on the Gaza Strip and from Jericho in the coming weeks in line with the Sept. 13 autonomy agreement.

In the Egyptian capital of Cairo, Israel and the PLO started intensive negotiations yesterday to launch Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and Jericho within 10 days, after a break of five weeks because of the Hebron massacre.

"We are working day and night to finalize the accord on the date set, April 13," so that "the Israeli withdrawal will start and finish as soon as possible," said the PLO's chief negotiator Nabil Shaath.

"We hope to conclude an accord as quickly as possible," agreed General Uzi Dayan, head of the Israeli team in the Egyptian capital, as a vanguard of Palestinian policemen was being prepared for deployment in Gaza and Jericho.

The resumption of talks followed a security accord signed on Thursday for the protection of Palestinians in the West Bank town of Hebron, where a Jewish settler shot dead 30 Moslem worshipers on Feb. 25.

Under the accord, 160 Norwegian, Danish and Italian observers are to be deployed in the town. Shaath said the international observers would be deployed in five days at the latest.

The two sides also agreed to accelerate their negotiations and sign a final deal to allow the withdrawal of Israeli troops and the launch of autonomy in the occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank town of Jericho by April 13.

The withdrawal was to have started four months ago. But failure to agree security measures and then a PLO suspension of the talks in the wake of the Hebron massacre have delayed implementation.

Yesterday, the two teams discussed security issues. Negotiators will also meet today on the transfer of civilian powers and PLO-Israeli economic talks are to resume on Wednesday in Paris.

Shaath has said a force of around 10,000 Palestinian policemen would be deployed in Gaza and Jericho.

"There will be a detailed schedule for the deployment that will coincide with the gradual withdrawal of Israeli armed forces," the Palestinian negotiator told reporters. Agenda

In Israel, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's spokesman said deportees and the release of prisoners were also on the agenda. "The Israel and Palestinian delegations ... are going to work out the details of the deployment of these policemen, the return of the deportees and the release of Palestinian prisoners," Gad Ben Ari told AFP.

PLO officials in Gaza City said six Palestinian policemen would cross into the strip on Tuesday led by Palestine Liberation Army general Nasser Yussef who is to command the new force. Another 120 men would follow on Thursday.

Yussef would inspect facilities due to be evacuated by Israeli security forces, said the officials, who refused to be named.

Palestinian leaders in Jerusalem announced on Saturday that 1,500 policemen would arrive in the coming days along with Palestine Liberation Organization supporters expelled since 1967, when Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza. Israel radio reported that the first 20 men would be on the streets of Gaza by the end of the week, probably in uniform and armed with pistols.

Then another 300 Palestinian policemen would arrive in the second week of April, according to the radio. Two hundred men would be deployed in Gaza and 100 in Jericho.

Rabin himself announced that more prisoners would be freed and Palestinians who were deported or fled allowed to return to the territories.

"These measures will concern only those who, wanted or expelled, do not have blood on their hands, grassroots militants and not frontline political leaders," he said.

A foreign ministry official said the greater part of the 10,000 Palestinians still in Israeli jails would be released in several stages.