TEL AVIV, April 18: Israel pledged on Thursday to withdraw from most West Bank cities by the end of the week, but said its forces would continue the siege of Yasser Arafat’s compound and Bethlehem’s Nativity church until guerillas inside surrendered.

The promise followed a Middle East mission by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that failed to produce a ceasefire or the immediate Israeli withdrawal from shattered Palestinian cities that US President George Bush first demanded on April 4.

A senior State Department official said Powell could return “in two or three weeks”, signalling a deeper US involvement in efforts to calm the conflict after the hands-off approach taken by the Bush administration during its first year in power.

Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said troops would leave the cities of Nablus, Jenin and parts of Ramallah by Sunday, but would remain around Arafat’s compound and the Church of the Nativity until a standoff was resolved.

Witnesses said Israeli forces had withdrawn from the Jenin refugee camp, in a further sign its forces were gradually pulling out of the northern West Bank city.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said on Israel Radio that “creative solutions” would be needed to end the standoffs in Bethlehem and Ramallah and clear the way for a troop withdrawal from all Palestinian-ruled West Bank cities.

A weary Powell told reporters in closing out his mission on Wednesday that the word “ceasefire” was not even relevant until Israel ended its offensive.

He also voiced dismay at Arafat over his performance in curbing hardline factions, saying he had told Arafat his Palestinian Authority must resolve to stifle “terrorism” and needed to make a “strategic choice” for peace.

Powell, whose trip was jolted by two Palestinian suicide bombings and fresh Israeli incursions into Palestinian towns and villages, promised to return but set no date.

In Bethlehem, negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian officials to end the impasse at the church were cancelled at the last minute, Hannah Nasser, the city’s mayor, said.

The governor of Bethlehem, Mohammed al-Madani, who is holed up in the church with scores of gunmen, policemen, clerics, nuns and civilians, said an Israeli-Palestinian committee should decide the fate of Palestinians Israel says are hiding there.—Reuters