In Sept. 24 , Israeli and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) officials meeting in Taba, Egypt, finalized agreement on the second stage of eventual Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian lands. Under the pact, which was officially signed on September 28 in Washington, D.C., Israeli forces were scheduled to be removed from six Arab cities and 400 villages in the West Bank by early 1996, after which elections would be held for a 82-member Palestinian council, which would possess legislative and executive power in the West Bank and Gaza.

Special arrangements were agreed upon for the West Bank city of Hebron, where Israeli soldiers will remain to protect the 450 Jewish settlers living there. Disagreement over the status of Hebron almost scuttled the agreement, and it took almost a week of non-stop negotiations between PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to resolve the issue.

The pact was the second stage in a three-step process agreed upon in the Declaration of Principles, a framework for eventual Palestinian autonomy signed by the PLO and Israel in September 1993. The first phase in the process was finalized in May 1994, when an accord was signed in Cairo, Egypt, for the pullout of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho and the handing over of administrative duties to the Palestinian National Authority, led by Arafat. The third stage will tackle such contentious issues as the status of Jerusalem, the fate of Israeli settlers, and the final borders between Israel and the Palestinian state that many analysts believe is close to becoming a reality. Negotiations concerning the last phase of the peace process were scheduled to begin in May 1996, with any agreement to be implemented before the end of the century.