The Israeli army is ready to pull back from its positions around Palestinian towns if there are significant drops in the levels of violence in the next few days, an Israeli general said Wednesday.
"If there is a real change it will allow us to move our forces back," Major-General Giora Eiland, head of army operations, told a press conference in Jerusalem.
However, he did not expect the violent unrest which has rocked the West Bank and Gaza Strip for nearly four weeks to subside in the immediate future because, he said, he did not believe Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was committed to peace.
"The situation is very serious," he said. "If there are no good changes, the next steps will be bad changes," he warned, without elaborating – JERUSALEM (AFP)
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