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Last update - 15:45 22/03/2005
MI: PA forces foiling as many terror attacks as Israel
By Gideon Alon, Amos Harel and Arnon Regular, Haaretz Correspondents, and
Haaretz
Service

The Palestinian Authority security forces are foiling just as many terror
attacks
as Israel, the head of the research division of Israel Defense Forces
intelligence, Brigadier General Yossi Kuperwasser, told the Knesset Foreign
Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday.

Israel handed over security responsibility for the the West Bank town of Tul
Karm
to the PA on Monday night. At around 8 P.M., armed Palestinian policemen began
patrolling the streets of the town, the second in the West Bank to be handed
over
to the PA.

Last week, the Palestinian Authority assumed security control in Jericho. Talks
on the handover of a third West Bank city, presumably Qalqilyah, are expected to
begin in the coming days.

Israel Defense Forces and Palestinian commanders formalized the Tul Karm
handover
Tuesday morning, ceremonially unlocking a gate that had blocked traffic between
the town and other locations in the West Bank. The gate is to be removed at a
later point.

Under the terms of the agreement reached between Israel and the PA, the IDF will
avoid entering the town; on Tuesday morning the IDF removed its roadblock on the
road between the city and the nearby village of Anabta.

Israeli officials decided on the handover Monday after resolving a dispute with
the PA over the control of villages near the town.

During talks Sunday, the Palestinians demanded responsibility for villages north
of Tul Karm, including Tseida and Ilar, from which an Islamic Jihad cell mounted
its February attack at the Stage club in Tel Aviv. Israel rejected the demand.
The sides agreed Monday that the villages would remain under Israeli control and
that the issue would be revisited in a month's time.