Israeli forces completed their withdrawal early Thursday morning from the Ramallah compound of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat following an agreement transferring six Palestinians to U.S. and British custody.
The development came as a gun battle and fire broke out at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and as the United Nations announced it was disbanding its fact-finding mission to Jenin.
The Ramallah pullout began late Wednesday, just minutes after the six Palestinians, wanted by Israel, were moved from Arafat's compound to a Palestinian prison in the town of Jericho, where their capitivity will be monitored by U.S. and British security officials.
A convoy of about a dozen vehicles with diplomatic license plates entered Arafat's compound in the evening and left after ensuring the prisoners were moved.
Arafat's spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, told CNN that the Palestinian leader plans to stay in his headquarters. Arafat will begin traveling, but first wants to focus on the crises in the West Bank, the spokesman said.
Israel has confined Arafat to his office since late March and to Ramallah since December.
Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Wednesday Arafat would be free to travel abroad and return, according to a Channel 1 TV report of a closed briefing.
Four of the prisoners were wanted in the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi in Oct. 2001. Israeli says the fifth man -- Ahmed Saadat, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -- was also involved in the killing, and wants the sixth for allegedly smuggling arms from Iran to the Palestinian territories.
Their transfer was delayed earlier apparently as a result of Arafat's reluctance to transfer Saadat, whose PFLP group claimed the Zeevi killing. Palestinian analysts say that it is politically risky for Arafat to gain his own freedom by allowing Saadat to be incarcerated. Although the PFLP is small, it is considered to be influential and has a representative on the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
In another development, Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the U.N. Security Council in a letter Wednesday that he intends to cancel a fact-finding mission to the Palestinian refugee camp at Jenin.
"It is my intention to disband the fact-finding team tomorrow," Annan said.
The three-man commission was appointed April 22 following a resolution of the Security Council.
Annan expressed regret "the long shadow cast by recent events in the Jenin refugee camp will remain." Israel refused to cooperate with the team, raising objections to its membership and mandate.
Jenin was the site of the fiercest fighting in the recent Israeli incursion into Palestinian territory. Officials of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority have said hundreds of civilian residents of the camp were killed. Amnesty International has said that it has found preliminary evidence that Israeli soldiers violated the Geneva conventions and other laws of war.
The Israeli military has denied that it carried out a massacre and says its three week incursion into to the camp was necessary to "uproot an infrastructure of terror." It says that it tried to minimize civilian casualties - for example eschewing the use of air power - and in doing so put the lives of its soldiers at risk.
Also early Thursday, an explosion shook Manger Square and a fire broke out in the Church of the Nativity compound after a gun battle erupted between Israeli troops and Palestinians inside.
The church has been the site of a standoff between Israel Defense Forces surrounding the church and Palestinians hunkered down inside since April 2.
An Israeli military source told United Press International said the fire followed a heavy exchange of shooting between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters inside the building. More than 180 people are still inside the church.
The Israeli military said soldiers surrounding the church shot back after gunmen fired at them first. Palestinian officials said the fighting broke out when Israeli troops looked like they were going to storm the church.
According to tradition, the 6th-century church in Manger Square was built on the site were Jesus was born.
*
(Joshua Brilliant reported from Tel Aviv, Israel and Saud Abu Ramadan from Gaza. William Reilly contributed from the United Nations.)
