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Israel Starts to Pull out Tanks From Gaza, West Bank
Israeli forces Thursday afternoon started to pull out their tanks and other armored vehicles from many places in the Gaza Strip and began to remove barriers set up in the main roads there, eyewitnesses said.
Meanwhile, Israeli troops stationed in the West Bank began to withdraw their tanks from the mountains in the town of Nablus and Sarda crossroad in the northern of the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Palestinian officials said that the Rafah border crossing point between Gaza and Egypt was reopened on Thursday afternoon.
Israeli radio quoted an Israeli official from the civil affairs department as saying that Israel has reopened the crossing points of Rafah and Karni in the Gaza Strip in accordance with the recommendations included in a ceasefire plan proposed by U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director George Tenet.
The official added that Israel will, within the next 12 hours, reduce the security restrictions imposed on the Palestinians territories to facilitate the movement among the Palestinian cities.
Meanwhile, he noted that the Palestinian National Authority should also carry out its pledges, particularly those related to preventing any military attacks on the roads in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Another Israeli source affirmed that Israel also decided to relieve the naval cordon imposed on Gaza Strip. But eyewitnesses said that an Israeli naval ship is still stationed off Gaza city.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon earlier Thursday morning ordered the Israeli army not to pull back from areas "in which the Palestinians are not committed to the ceasefire truce."
Sharon's order came after many mortar shells were fired at the Rafah Yam settlement in southern Gaza Strip Thursday morning, and fire shootings occurred in several places in Gaza Strip and the West Bank Wednesday night, reported Israeli radio.
On Wednesday night, the Palestinians and Israel reached a truce agreement under the auspices of CIA Director Tenet aimed at ending the more than eight months of violence that has killed more than 600 people, most of them Palestinians, since last September.
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