Israeli troops withdraw from Nablus: Palestinians

Nablus (West Bank), Feb 27: The Israeli army has withdrawn most of its forces from the northern West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinians said today, three days after a raid it launched to arrest suspected militants.

The Israeli army declined to comment on the report. A spokeswoman said she was unable to give any details on the status of troops in the area.

Local Palestinian residents and Israel Radio said that the Israeli army began pulling troops out of Nablus late yesterday night and that most of the soldiers had left the city by today morning.

Residents also said that schools, which had been shut over the past two days, reopened today.

The military incursion was the biggest Israel had mounted in the occupied West Bank in months. Soldiers had confined some 30,000 residents under curfew as they searched for gunmen in the city Israel considers as a militant stronghold.

During the incursion, residents said troops used loudspeakers to urge four militants from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and two more from the Islamic Jihad to surrender.

An army spokesman said today troops arrested five men in Nablus but that they were not necessarily those on the list of six it had asked to surrender.

Islamic Jihad carried out a suicide bombing that killed three Israelis in January and has refused to commit to a Gaza truce which most militant groups agreed to in November. Al-Aqsa martyrs Brigades is part of President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party.

Israeli raids in the West Bank are common. The army said it had arrested nine other militants in the territory today.

REUTERS

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