Israel's defence minister has said he intends to extend a troop withdrawal plan in the Gaza Strip to areas in the West Bank to help ease hardships for Palestinians and pave the way towards a ceasefire.
But pressing ahead with operations against Palestinian militants, the Israeli army detained 16 suspects in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Qalqilya, a military spokesman said.
Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told reporters he hoped to expand a plan under which Israel would pull troops back from the edges of Palestinian cities in the Gaza Strip once violence ebbed and Palestinian security forces took control.
"I think the issue of Gaza-first, which I initiated, will include not only Gaza but also other places," Ben-Eliezer told reporters at a meeting with Catherine Bertini, a UN humanitarian envoy. The Palestinian cabinet gave preliminary approval on August 7th to the Gaza-first plan to ease Israel's military clampdown.
But Palestinian and Israeli officials who later met to discuss the proposal failed to reach any agreement amid Palestinian demands for Israeli troop withdrawals from West Bank cities reoccupied in June after a spate of suicide bombings.