Israeli officials are calling for new redeployment procedures in the West Bank after Palestinians burned Israeli flags as Israeli troops withdrew from Nablus.
Opposition members called the incident “a disgrace.”
Maj. Gen. Ilan Biran, the commander in charge of the region that includes the West Bank, said the redeployments slated for later this month from the West bank towns of Bethlehem, Ramallah and Kalkilya would be conducted differently as a result of the experience in Nablus on Monday.
He said future redeployments would not be conducted at the same time that Palestinian police were entering the cities, as was the case in Nablus, where crowds of celebrating Palestinians greeted the police as Israeli forces were attempting to withdraw.
Israeli troops pulled out of Nablus in a hasty departure a full day ahead of schedule. Biran said at the time that the change in schedule was made in an effort to prevent any confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli troops.
But word spread of the pending redeployment, and thousands of Palestinians converged on the former military headquarters, where Israeli troops were handing over control to the Palestinians.
There were no major clashes, but some incidents were reported, including the burning of the Israeli flag on the roof of what had served as the army headquarters.
Maj. Gen. Oren Shahor, head of the Israeli delegation in the joint Israeli- Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee, raised the issue Wednesday at a meeting with his Palestinian counterpart, Jamil Tarifi, in Ramallah.
“We regard this as a grave incident, and we are demanding that the Palestinian Authority prevent such things from happening in the future,” Shahor told reporters.
Palestinian police will face one of their biggest challenges in Nablus, where they will have to assume control over dozens of rival armed gangs.
Among them are the Fatah Hawks, an armed group that fought against israel in the intifada, or Palestinian uprising, and that has refused to lay down its arms.
Some 1,000 Palestinians marched Wednesday through the streets of Nablus in a show of support for Ahmed Tabouk, the head of the local Fatah Hawks faction who controls about 500 men.
Tabouk, 31, is considered a local hero by some Palestinians, a vigilante by others.
He is wanted by Israeli officials, who say he is responsible for killing Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel.
Tabouk, who participate in Wednesday’s march, said he supports the peace process and that he has held meetings with palestinian officials in an effort to cooperate with them.
Meanwhile, Israeli border police scuffled Wednesday with more than a dozen palestinian youths when the group attempted to damage a tent set up by right- wing Israelis protesting opposite Orient House, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s de facto headquarters in eastern Jerusalem.
At the time, no Israelis were in the tent.
One Palestinian was detained for questioning after he resisted police efforts to disperse the crowd.
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