Israeli tanks rumbled out of Palestinian-ruled Ramallah on Wednesday, signaling an end to the two-week-old reoccupation of parts of the West Bank city which had drawn sharp international criticism. 
Tanks, armored personnel carriers and jeeps moved through the streets of northern Ramallah under the cover of darkness in the early hours of Wednesday morning, residents said. 
Residents of the Ramallah districts occupied by Israeli forces had been under curfew throughout most of the occupation. But they braved rain and wind to watch the pullout begin at around 1:00 a.m. 
There were no immediate reports of a withdrawal from Palestinian-ruled areas in the western part of Ramallah, but Israeli military sources said troops would be taken out of the city throughout the night. 
The sources said they expected the pullout to end shortly before dawn on Wednesday. 
Ramallah was one of six West Bank cities partially reoccupied by Israel after radical Palestinians assassinated a far-right Israeli cabinet minister on October 17 in revenge for Israel's slaying of its leader. 
Under heavy international pressure, Israel pulled its troops out of Bethlehem and neighboring Beit Jala last week and left the Palestinian-ruled city of Qalqilya on Monday after reaching what it said were truce agreements with local commanders. 
Israel's Defense Ministry said the army would maintain its stranglehold around Ramallah after the withdrawal. 
Raanan Gissin, an aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said Israel would withdraw from all the Palestinian-ruled cities once the Palestinian Authority agreed to prevent militants from launching attacks against Israelis from these areas. 
He said Israel would abandon the tactic of large-scale military raids in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. 
Israel's military incursions have drawn criticism from its closest ally, the United States, which is keen to end 13 months of Israeli-Palestinian fighting to bolster Arab and Islamic support for its anti-terror coalition. 
Five Palestinians were killed in the West Bank on Tuesday in fresh violence, including three gunmen who the Palestinian Authority said had been "executed" by Israeli forces after they were wounded in an exchange of fire. 
The army said the three died in a gun battle in which an Israeli army officer was also killed. 
Palestinians also accused Israel of booby-trapping a car which blew up in the West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday, killing two activists in President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction. Israel said a bomb the men were preparing exploded prematurely. 
At least 697 Palestinians and 186 Israelis have been killed since a Palestinian revolt against Israeli occupation began in September 2000 after a deadlock in peace negotiations. 
Gissin said the military would abandon the tactic of large-scale military operations, which has drawn world wrath, and instead adopt what he described as guerrilla tactics, or "pinpoint operations." 
"The method of operation is going to change," Gissin said. "We will be using when necessary guerrilla warfare against terrorism rather than large-scale forces moving into the area." 
"I believe that the use of the sort of incursions that we used with large forces has exhausted itself," he said. 
Israel has come under international criticism for what it calls its "targeted killings" of individual Palestinian militants, well-planned surprise attacks which Palestinians call assassinations. 
Gissin added that since the incursion into the West Bank began, Israeli forces arrested 35 of the "most wanted" Palestinian militants from Palestinian-ruled areas and prevented 15 Palestinians from infiltrating into Israel to carry out attacks. 
Sharon said in a speech on Monday that Israel was changing its methods of confronting violence in the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, but did not to elaborate. 
Soldiers still remain in and around areas of the West Bank cities of Tulkarm and Jenin.