NABLUS/TABA, 25 June 2004 — Three Palestinians were wounded yesterday as the Israeli Army combed through the northern West Bank town of Nablus in a massive operation, witnesses and medical sources said.

The three were hit when soldiers opened fire to disperse a group of youths who had been throwing stones at them in the center of Nablus, the witnesses said.

The Israeli operation came even as EU, Russian, UN and US diplomats, who from the so-called Middle East quartet, poured over Israel’s plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and backed a Cairo deal to underpin security afterward.

The army imposed a curfew in the city’s ancient Casbah quarter as they conducted dozens of door-to-door searches, according to a Palestinian security source. The curfew, which was imposed at dawn, prevented dozens of pupils from attending their high-school examinations.

The army has also handed out leaflets written in Arabic calling on residents to help them detain six wanted members of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of the mainstream Fatah movement, and from the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). An Israeli military spokesman said that the operation was likely to continue for several days, adding that an explosives belt had already been discovered. Several Palestinians had also been arrested, he added.

Meanwhile, an EU statement said the envoys stressed “their strong support for the efforts of the Egyptian government ... to put in place arrangements that will be critical to the success of the Israeli initiative to withdraw from Gaza”.

Egypt has proposed sending 150 to 200 police officers to train a Palestinian force of some 30,000 police to fill the security gap which the Israeli pullout will create in the Palestinian territory against its eastern frontier.

The meeting was attended by US Middle East envoy William Burns, his Russian counterpart Alexander Kalugin, Europe’s Middle East pointman Marc Otte and the UN coordinator for the Middle East Terje Roed-Larsen.

They agreed to work “closely with the parties in the coming months to take advantage of the opportunity presented by the Gaza withdrawal as a step toward restarting progress on the road map, and achieving the two-state vision,” said the statement.

The quartet also discussed steps for the economic reconstruction of Gaza with the help of the World Bank and members of the European community. “The envoys welcomed the release of the World Bank rapid assessment study today. They undertook to carefully consider its recommendations in planning to ensure Palestinian economic and humanitarian needs are met,” said the EU.

Talks would also cover the need for “political reconstruction to strengthen the Palestinian Authority” and its ability to set up a leadership in Gaza and the West Bank, Burns said.

In Amman, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei said that King Abdallah had accepted his formal request for Jordan to help train Palestinian security forces. “We formally asked our Jordanian brothers... to help us rebuild and organize the Palestinian security forces in cooperation with our brothers in Egypt,” Qorei told state television, flanked by Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Moasher.

“I am happy. They indicated their readiness (to help) and it will be done in cooperation” with Egypt, Qorei said. Qorei said he made a similar request of Egypt as the Palestinian Authority prepares to assume control of the Gaza Strip after a planned Israeli withdrawal by end-2005. The premier added that he had also sought support from Cairo and Amman to “break the stalemate” in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.