The Israeli army yesterday morning pulled out of Beit Rima, a Palestinian village in the West Bank where troops shot dead at least five members of Yasser Arafat's security forces during a major military onslaught on Wednesday.
The army was still deployed on Palestinian-held territory in six of the eight large West Bank cities - and another four Palestinians were killed in fighting that raged in Bethlehem and Tulkarm yesterday - but government ministers decided at a late night meeting to order a gradual retreat from some of these areas as well.
That cabinet decision came amid mounting pressure from the Bush administration, the UN and the EU for an end to the unprecedented eight-day incursion. Officials said the troops would withdraw first from relatively calm areas, but intimated that they might remain for several more days on Palestinian land in cities such as Jenin, where security chiefs have warned that a lifting of the military siege would carry an acute threat of renewed suicide bombings.
Clearly, Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, and Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, were hoping that this "middle path" would prove sufficient to appease the Americans, maintain pressure on Mr Arafat, and satisfy their own domestic supporters.
Mr Peres returned yesterday from talks with President Bush, and attempted the near-impossible task of appearing to accept both American demands for a withdrawal and Mr Sharon's public insistence that the troops will stay until Mr Arafat's Palestinian Authority apprehends and extradites the gunmen, from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who assassinated the Israeli Tourism Minister, Mr Rehavam Ze'evi, in Jerusalem last Wednesday. Although US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, continues to publicly demand an "immediate" withdrawal, Mr Peres asserted that the administration, though concerned about the implications of the violence for its anti-terror coalition, had nevertheless moderated that position, and now only wished to see the Israelis departing "as soon as possible."
This was precisely what Israel intended to do, said the foreign minister, insisting "we do not intend to destroy the Palestinian Authority".
UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, his special envoy, Mr Terje Larsen, ministers from Britain and France, and even Israel's own human rights group B'Tselem have joined the call for a troop withdrawal. The German Foreign Minister, Mr Joschka Fischer, and EU envoy, Mr Javier Solana, are meeting with leaders from both sides in an effort to broker a new ceasefire. More than 40 Palestinians have now been killed since Mr Ze'evi was gunned down.
The Palestine Authority declared a day of mourning yesterday for the Beit Rima dead, some of whom, officials and eyewitnesses claimed, were killed in their sleep. Thousands participated in their funeral marches through Ramallah. The Authority still insists that at least eight people were killed during the raid.
Dr Bassem Rimawi said he saw the body of one man "lying right next to his bed under the tree.
It was obvious he was shot dead in his bed and fell as he was dying". Another man, he said, "bled to death in an olive grove" while the army prevented ambulances from entering the village. The doctor said he was only allowed to inspect the dead and treat the wounded five hours after the troops arrived. The army's West Bank commander, Brig-Gen Gershon Yitzhak, has insisted that all the men killed had opened fire on the troops as they entered the village.