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Israel Delays Pullout from Palestinian Town Despite Calm
JERUSALEM, Nov 21 (News Agencies) - Israel said Wednesday its army was not ready to leave the last of six Palestinian towns it partly occupied after the killing of a cabinet minister, despite a lull in the violence and the imminent arrival of U.S. peace envoys.
"We cannot pull back at this stage as we had wanted, because we have on hand detailed information of threats and preparations in Jenin for suicide attacks," defense ministry spokesman Yarden Vatikai said.
Israel regards Jenin as a haven for Palestinian resistance activity.
"The Palestinian Authority's police have not done anything against the terrorists whose doings and movements it knows perfectly," he added, despite Palestinian police arresting a wanted man in Jenin last week, which sparked clashes pitting police against civilians.
Violence has dropped off recently as the region prepares for next week's arrival of two top U.S. peace envoys promised by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in a Monday speech, hailed widely as a launching pad for a new U.S.-led peace initiative.
Powell said he was pleased with the response to his major address, which outlined Washington's vision for a peaceful Middle East, and that satisfaction voiced by Israel and the Palestinians raised hopes for a "new opportunity" for regional peace.
"We have a new opportunity before us, an opportunity that I hope both parties will seize, and the United States will do its part," Powell said Tuesday.
In his address, Powell called for Israel to withdraw its troops from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but also demanded Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat strive harder to end attacks on Israel.
Almost 1,000 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed in the unrest that exploded in September 2000 after the peace process stalled and Palestinians vented their anger at Israel's military occupation of large tracts of their land.
Israel sent tanks into a Gaza refugee camp immediately after Powell's address, injuring six people, while Palestinian activists injured two soldiers in a mortar attack. A tense quiet has since settled on the region.
Israeli officials have been preoccupied with a growing rash of domestic economic woes, in which civil servants have walked off the job and under-funded firefighters clashed with police outside parliament.
The country's main airport at Tel Aviv was shut down Tuesday by striking workers. The labor dispute finally ended Wednesday afternoon, when a pay deal received the backing of the Treasury.
Meanwhile, Israel has not dropped its tough policy in the Palestinian territories, sending around 50 troops overnight into an autonomous village near Tulkarem in the northern West Bank to arrest two Palestinian brothers, whom the army said were hardline activists - a charge villagers denied.
The Jewish state has vowed to arrest or kill suspects whom the Palestinian Authority refuses to jail, despite renewed prodding for restraint from Powell.
Israel has made frequent and often bloody incursions into Palestinian self-rule areas.
The army admitted Tuesday it has dug trenches around still occupied Jenin to prevent potential Palestinian activists from slipping out.
And Palestinian hospital officials said a Palestinian with heart problems died after hours of waiting at an Israeli checkpoint near Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip overnight as he was trying to reach a hospital.
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