JERUSALEM - Not all Israeli settlements in the West Bank will remain in place in a final peace accord with the Palestinians, but there will be no pullbacks comparable to this month's evacuations, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Monday.
Sharon spoke as a senior Egyptian mediator discussed Gaza border crossings and pried a pledge from Palestinian militants to maintain a truce with Israel despite a surge of violence after the withdrawal from Gaza and part of the West Bank.
In a television interview, Sharon said all of the main settlement blocs would remain under Israeli sovereignty, but "not all the settlements of today in Judea and Samaria will remain," calling the West Bank by its biblical names.
He was not specific, but he appeared to be referring to small enclaves around Palestinian cities, as opposed to larger ones near the line with Israel.
Sharon said there would be no "second stage of disengagement," as he calls the pullout, either unilateral or coordinated. He said the next step must be negotiations under the "road map" peace plan that leads through three stages to a Palestinian state.
Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman was in Gaza Monday on a mission to bolster the cease-fire and mediate an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians on Gaza's borders that would allow Gazans to come and go freely for the first time in nearly four decades.
Israeli Interior Minister Ophir Pines-Paz said it could take months to reach agreement over control of Gaza's border crossings, as well as over safe passage for Palestinians to move from Gaza across Israel to the West Bank.
Suleiman's immediate task was to bolster a cease-fire declared in February that drastically reduced violence after more than four years of bloodshed.
Palestinians insisted the truce is still in effect.
"The calm still exists. We are committed to this," Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said after meeting with Suleiman. "All the factions are committed." Leaders from the main militant groups - Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade - also attended the meeting.
In new violence Monday, a 15-year-old Palestinian boy was caught at a West Bank roadblock carrying three pipe bombs laced with shrapnel. The army said the boy hoped to enter Israel to carry out an attack.
