JERUSALEM, Feb 1: Israel will slow a planned pullback from West Bank cities because of Gaza violence that has frayed a de facto cease fire and raised doubts Palestinians can keep militants in check, officials said on Tuesday.

Militants fired half a dozen mortars into Jewish settlements on Monday and several more on Tuesday, causing no casualties, after Palestinians in the Gaza town of Rafah accused Israeli soldiers of shooting dead a girl near a volatile border zone.

But Israel, which has pledged to ease occupation privations to boost new Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his quest for peacemaking, on Tuesday fully reopened Gaza's important border crossing with Egypt after weeks of closure.

Israel had sealed the Rafah terminal, stranding thousands of travellers, after militants killed several soldiers in a border ambush. Despite the reopening, Palestinian males between 16 and 35 remained banned from crossing on security grounds.

Abbas has revived global hope for Middle East peacemaking and he is expected to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon this month for the first summit between the sides in years. But Monday's spasm of shooting upset the relative calm that had set in across Gaza since Abbas, elected as Yasser Arafat's successor on Jan. 9, cajoled armed groups into a tacit truce to avoid stalling a planned Israeli withdrawal this summer.

Thousands of Palestinian security forces have fanned out in Gaza after an absence of years to stabilise the truce and Israel has raised the prospect of a follow-up pullback from cities in the occupied West Bank, a long time Palestinian demand.

But Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz told Abbas's security envoy Mohammed Dahlan at talks on Monday that Israel was delaying such a pullback because Palestinian police did not seem ready yet to fill the vacuum, defence officials said.

Nonetheless, government officials said Sharon planned to ask a decision-making forum of seven senior cabinet members on Thursday to approve the withdrawal and set a general timeframe for the pullback from West Bank cities. -Reuters