RAMALLAH, West Bank ? Israeli armored vehicles began rumbling out of Yasser Arafat’s battered compound Wednesday night, ending his five months of confinement in a diplomatic breakthrough that also saw six wanted Palestinians whisked away to a West Bank jail in a U.S. and British convoy.

The U.S.-brokered deal produced a dramatic resolution to one of the thorniest confrontations in the Mideast conflict. However, Israelis and Palestinians remain far apart on larger issues, such as a cease-fire and a resumption of peace negotiations.

Arafat was expected to remain inside his rocket-scorched offices until the Israelis had finished leaving Ramallah early Thursday, and was likely to stay in the Palestinian territories for at least the next few days.

“His plans are still that he’s going to stay in his headquarters,” Nabil Abu Rdeneh, Arafat’s spokesman, told CNN. Arafat will begin traveling abroad, but first wants to focus on the ongoing crises in the West Bank, Abu Rdeneh said.

Israel agreed in principle on Sunday to release the Palestinian leader from five months of increasingly stringent confinement first to the town of Ramallah, then to the compound, then to a few rooms in his office building.

The standoff ended when the sides accepted President Bush’s plan to move the six wanted Palestinians from Arafat’s offices to a jail in the West Bank town of Jericho, where they will be watched over by American and British wardens. Israel had been demanding custody of the men.

A dozen U.S. and British armored vehicles pulled into Arafat’s compound around sundown Wednesday to pick up the men. Led by three Israeli security jeeps, the vehicles traveled in single file as they left the complex, littered with crushed cars and bullet-pocked buildings.

An hour later, Palestinians lining the street in front of the jail clapped and whistled as the six men arrived at the jail in Jericho, about 22 miles away.

At the same time, some Israeli trucks and armored personnel carriers began pulling out of Arafat’s compound, part of a planned withdrawal from the entire city that was expected to take about two to six hours, according to Israeli military officials.

The six wanted men had been holed up with Arafat and about 300 other people since Israeli forces charged into the compound at the beginning of a March 29 invasion in the West Bank, aimed at rooting out Palestinian militants.

In a lightning trial at the compound, four were convicted of the killing of Israeli Cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi last October.

The two others are Ahmed Saadat, leader of the radical PLO faction that carried out the assassination, and Fuad Shobaki, alleged mastermind of a seaborne Palestinian arms shipment intercepted by the Israeli navy in January.

Israel’s Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said the success of Israel’s military offensive in the West Bank “will be judged by the speed with which we return to diplomatic negotiations.”

The Bush administration, working in concert with Saudi Arabia, is accelerating its efforts for a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

With Mideast leaders headed to the White House or on the telephone with Secretary of State Colin Powell on Wednesday the State Department spokesman promised, “We will do what’s necessary to help facilitate that process.”

But prospects for talks remained dim amid the ongoing violence.

In the Gaza Strip, four Palestinians were killed Wednesday by Israeli fire, including a 2-year-old girl.

A roadside bomb was detonated early Wednesday near an Israeli tank deployed at the Rafah crossing in the southern Gaza Strip, along the Israeli-Egyptian border, the military said.

Palestinian witnesses said tanks then fired machine guns and shells at a nearby neighborhood, killing the 2-year-old and a deaf man in their homes. Palestinians said tanks then drove into the Rafah refugee camp, prompting an exchange of fire in which two more Palestinians were killed.

The military said soldiers spotted the Palestinians who set off the roadside bomb, fired on them with light arms and hit one of them. A second attacker was captured, the army said.

In the West Bank town of Bethlehem, an 11-year-old Palestinian boy was killed and two other youngsters were critically wounded in a mysterious explosion near a Palestinian police station. The army said it was investigating the blast.

Also Wednesday, Palestinian officials said a total of 52 bodies up four from last week have been recovered at the Jenin camp, scene of a fierce April 3-11 battle between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen and subject of intense international scrutiny.

Palestinians alleged Israeli troops carried out a massacre of civilians, killing hundreds. But Israel says the death toll is about 50 or slightly higher, and that most of the dead were gunmen killed in combat.

At the Jenin camp, Fahri Turkman, head of the local emergency committee, reiterated allegations that Israeli troops carried out a massacre even though the number of bodies found so far appeared to support Israel’s version.

“The number (of dead) will increase because we are missing so many people and we don’t know if they are in jail or under the rubble,” Turkman said. He said it was difficult to put together a list of the missing because Israel has not handed camp officials a list of names of those detained in Israel’s offensive.

At the United Nations, Secretary-General Kofi Annan was considering canceling a U.N. fact-finding mission to the Jenin camp because of Israel’s refusal to cooperate with the team’s mandate was changed. Annan was looking for advice from the Security Council on Wednesday before making a decision.

In Bethlehem, two Palestinian policemen, one wounded and the other ill, emerged from the besieged Church of the Nativity on Wednesday.

Despite the breakthrough at Arafat’s compound, there were no signs that the two sides were about to resolve the church standoff, which began April 2 when gunmen fled advancing Israeli troops and took refuge in the church.

Nearly 200 people remain holed up in one of Christianity’s holiest shrines. Israel and the Palestinians are at odds regarding about 30 gunmen still inside. Israel insists that they either surrender or accept exile. The Palestinians proposed that they be taken to Gaza.