JENIN, West Bank, 20 October — Israeli tanks re-entered Jenin yesterday, less than 48 hours after Israel pulled out of the West Bank city and lifted a curfew in response to what it called relative quiet. Palestinian detonated explosives planted on the road to deter the tanks, which returned fire with machine guns. Neither side reported any injuries. The Israeli Army spokesman could not say why the tanks had rumbled back into Jenin, known as a militant stronghold, saying that Israel does not discuss its deployment decisions.
Near Nablus in the West Bank, clashes broke out between Israeli troops and hundreds of Jewish settlers as the army and police tried to clear a rogue settlement. As a large number of security forces gathered to dismantle the Havat Gilad outpost, they were met by hundreds of settlers who sat on the ground in a bid to prevent bulldozers and other equipment from reaching the outpost, the radio reported. A spokesman for the Israeli emergency services said four people were lightly injured in the clashes.
The US envoy to the Middle East, meanwhile, said Washington’s determination to deal with Iraq had not distracted it from resolving Israeli-Palestinian violence. Assistant Secretary of State William Burns was speaking in Cairo after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who said last week that ignoring the Palestinians and focusing on Iraq would aggravate both problems.
Burns said he had told Mubarak that Washington still relied on the "critical role" which the Arab world’s largest country could play in solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
