Israel Eases Its Hold on Jenin and Plans Pullback From Hebron
The Israeli Army has moved out of Jenin, on the West Bank, surrounding it and digging a trench to prevent militants from sneaking out, the army and the local governor said today.

On Sunday, Israeli cabinet officials are to discuss a pullback from Hebron, where Israeli forces have been in the part of the city formally controlled by the Palestinian Authority. Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer has already decided on the Hebron pullback, his spokesman said, but the move requires the final approval of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who returned today from a visit to Washington.


http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/19/international/middleeast/19MIDE.htmlIn Jenin today, the Palestinian governor reported that Israeli troops had left the city. An army spokesman said that troops were now positioned around Jenin, and that a trench was being dug to block the movement of weapons and militants out of the city. Access would be allowed on main roads controlled by checkpoints, the spokesman said.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, about 200 people returned to a Jewish settlement outpost southwest of Nablus that the army had begun to dismantle this week. The army made no immediate move to evict the settlers, but Mr. Ben-Eliezer said the planned removal of 24 unauthorized outposts would be completed.

In the Gaza Strip, tensions remained high after Israeli tank shelling killed six Palestinians, including two children, during fighting in the Rafah refugee camp on Thursday.

In what the Islamic group Hamas called a revenge attack for the killings, two Israeli soldiers were lightly wounded near Dugit, a settlement of in the northern Gaza Strip, when they were assaulted with an explosive charge, gunfire and grenades. The Palestinian attacker was killed.

Brig. Gen. Yisrael Ziv, the commander of Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, defended the lethal shelling in a television interview today, saying his forces had responded properly to antitank rockets shot by Palestinian gunmen. "We have no need to apologize" the general said.