Sharon Says 'This Stage' Is Over as Israel Leaves Two Cities
Amid continued international outcry in some quarters over Israel's policy, the army said it had left Ramallah, apart from the Palestinian president's compound, and pulled out of Nablus.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat slammed Israeli pullbacks as a ``big deception,'' saying Israel still had security control of all Palestinian-ruled parts of the West Bank.

The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees told Reuters that 800 dwellings had been destroyed and many more damaged in the Jenin camp, making 4,000 to 5,000 people homeless.

``Certainly there is evidence of overwhelming and apparently disproportionate use of force, even if a battle was going on in Jenin camp,'' UNRWA Commissioner-General Peter Hansen said.

Mohammed Abu Ghali, director of Jenin hospital, said the body count from the camp had risen to 45. He stood by his earlier estimate that the final toll might be 300 to 400.

Israeli officials say a few dozen people, mostly militants, were killed in Jenin, along with 23 Israeli soldiers.

Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Israeli forces would stay outside Arafat's compound until three men accused of killing an Israeli cabinet minister last year were turned over.

Israel also wants the handover of Arafat's chief financial officer, Fuad Shubaki, whom it suspects of trying to smuggle arms from Iran into the Palestinian territories.

Palestinians say they have signed no extradition pact with Israel. Arafat has offered to put Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi's suspected assassins on trial in a Palestinian court.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine killed Zeevi in revenge for Israel's killing of its leader.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html