Israel to limit incursions in four West Bank cities

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel said on Thursday it would curtail its military activities in four West Bank cities to
help a US-backed move to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The announcement, that will give Palestinian security forces a free hand to operate in the cities, coincided with
efforts by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ease tensions with US President Barack Obama over
stalled peacemaking with the Palestinians.
A senior Palestinian security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, dismissed the move as a public
relations “sham”. He said Israel should halt incursions without exception.
Israel has rebuffed US calls for a halt to Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank. On Monday
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak will meet Obama’s Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, in Washington to
try to narrow differences. “As of today, Palestinian security forces will be able to operate freely in the cities of
Qalqilya, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Jericho,” an Israeli military official said.
The official said Israeli troops would still be able to operate within those cities, battlegrounds during a
Palestinian uprising that began in 2000, “in cases of urgent security need”. Abbas’s Western-backed
government is based in Ramallah.
More than 1,600 security men loyal to Abbas have undergone US-funded training since January 2008. They are
derided as collaborators by the Hamas fighters who seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 after routing
Abbas’s forces there.
Israel has slowly come to back the US training programme as a test of Abbas’s ability to rein in militants, as
demanded in a 2003 peace “road map” for establishing a Palestinian state.
Abbas has ruled out resuming peace talks with Israel until it halts settlement activity, also required under the road
map.
An Israeli security source said the army would “act as little as possible to allow the Palestinians to take more