Autonomy Pact for West Bank Remains Elusive : Mideast: Despite all-night session, Peres and Arafat fail to meet deadline. Another encounter planned for today or Tuesday.

Israeli leaders huddled Sunday after deadline-busting talks with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat failed to result in an accord on expanding Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank.

“We are not talking about a crisis but about the last bit of road up the mountain, which is always the most difficult,” said Environment Minister Yossi Sarid, a member of the government’s negotiating team.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres will meet with the Palestine Liberation Organization leader today or Tuesday in another attempt to agree on principles for an Israeli military redeployment in the West Bank.

Tensions remained high Sunday in the West Bank, where demonstrations erupted as the July 1 target date approached. In Nablus, Ramallah and other cities, Palestinians--demanding both the release of Palestinian prisoners and that the deadline be met--have clashed frequently with Israeli soldiers in the past week. At least four Palestinians have died in the confrontations.

Peres and Arafat met through the night Saturday in an unsuccessful bid to meet the self-imposed target date. Israeli and Palestinian negotiators said Sunday that the two sides still have “conceptual differences” about redeployment. But they insisted that an accord is within reach and will probably be signed by mid-July.

“The Israelis are negotiating seriously about redeployment in the whole West Bank, and that is good,” said Nabil abu Rudaineh, a spokesman for Arafat.

But Rudaineh said Israel insists on controlling security in areas of the West Bank where Palestinians and Jewish settlers might come in contact. Rudaineh said the Palestinians have proposed joint Israeli-Palestinian patrols in such areas, an offer Israel has rejected.

Palestinian officials have complained bitterly that Israeli security concerns have made travel between the West Bank and Gaza Strip, or even from the West Bank to Jerusalem, impossible for Palestinians, and they seem determined to avoid establishing a maze of checkpoints throughout the West Bank as a result of redeployment.

The Palestinians are also insisting on an Israeli timetable for the redeployment of troops from all Palestinian towns and villages.

Israel has offered to pull out of four northern towns this fall and is willing to pull out of Ramallah and Bethlehem after elections are held near the end of the year.

But it says it must keep its troops in Hebron, where about 400 militant Jewish settlers live in the heart of a Palestinian town. About 140,000 Jewish settlers live in more than 100 communities scattered across the West Bank, and the Israelis say that the main cause for the one-year delay in extending Palestinian self-rule throughout the West Bank has been the difficulty of ensuring the safety of the settlers.

Israel and the Palestinians signed a peace accord in September, 1993, that granted Palestinians limited self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during an “interim phase” that is to last until the two sides negotiate the final status of those territories. Israel has committed itself to beginning the talks by May.