Israel began to pull its forces out of the Palestinian-ruled city of Bethlehem tonight hours after reversing yesterday’s decision to postpone the planned withdrawal.
Witnesses saw Israeli armoured personnel carriers rumble towards an army checkpoint at the city entrance. Asked about the report, an Israeli security source said: The pullout has begun.
The United States, which has been trying to calm a year of Israeli-Palestinian violence as it pursues an anti-terror military campaign in Afghanistan, brokered the Bethlehem withdrawal deal on Friday.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon gave the go-ahead for the withdrawal despite two Palestinian shooting attacks today that killed five people in Israel. The Palestinian Authority condemned the violence.
Israel earlier announced it was to go ahead with preparations to pull its forces out of Bethlehem a day after postponing the withdrawal.
Israel moved forces in and around six Palestinian cities, including Bethlehem, along with its neighbouring town of Beit Jala, on October 17 after the assassination of Rehavam Zeevi, an extreme right-wing cabinet minister, by gunmen aligned to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Earlier today, two Palestinian gunmen killed four women in the northern Israeli city of Hadera, hours after an Israeli soldier was shot dead near the border with the West Bank.
More than 40 Palestinians, and five Israelis, have been killed since Israel’s incursion into the six Palestinian cities following Zeevi's death, in August.