Details Slow Transfer of Town in West Bank

Israeli and Palestinian commanders met Sunday to work out the final details of a hand-over of this town to Palestinian security forces, but the session ended without an agreement.

Earlier, Israel’s defense minister said Tulkarm’s hand-over would take place today, making it the second of five West Bank towns to be transferred to Palestinian control. Palestinian officials said the two sides would reconvene today. As with the earlier transfer of Jericho, the main issues concerned control over surrounding territory and removal of Israeli roadblocks.

The hand-overs are part of a truce announced last month at a summit in Egypt by Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Violence between the two sides has dropped considerably in the last five weeks, but two incidents Sunday in the West Bank underlined the fragility of the situation.

Armed Palestinians fired on Israeli police and soldiers who were searching for stolen cars in the Al Amari refugee camp near Ramallah, the military said, wounding two, one critically.

Hours later, a Palestinian man was shot and critically wounded by an Israeli border policeman in Bethlehem. Border Police spokesman Oren Goanias said the man had tried to steal a weapon from a policeman.

Also Sunday, Israel Radio reported that Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz approved construction of 3,500 housing units in and around the West Bank’s largest settlement, Maale Adumim, east of Jerusalem.

The Haaretz newspaper reported that aerial photographs taken for the Defense Ministry show considerable construction in three Israeli settlements in the West Bank, violating Israel’s commitment to stop such building under terms of the U.S.-backed “road map” peace plan.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv said the United States expected Israel to abide by its road map commitments.