JERICHO. Apr 3: Israel closed a Jail and started withdrawing from police stations in the Gaza Strip and Jericho on Sunday in preparation for the. arrival of Palestinian police, but the appearance of moving vans sparked clashes,- reports AP.

Also Sunday, after a month-long manhunt, police arrested the leader of the Jewish extremist Kach group outlawed in the wake of the Hebron mosque massacre.

Baruch Marzel. 35. arrested in a small settlement near Hebron in the occupied West Bank, was the last Kach activist still at large. Seven other activists have been arrested and held without trial.,and about 50 were ordered to return their army-issued weapons.

Israel ordered the crack-

down on Kach. which advocates expelling Arabs from all Israeli-held territory, after Jewish settler and Kach member Baruch Goldstein killed 30 Palestinians at the mosque on February 25.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin met with settler leaders to assure them none would be moved, while the state attorney rejected a lawsuit by settlers for advance warning of any evacuation.

In Jericho, a group of about 30 to 40 Palestinian youths chanted "P-L-O,. Israel No" as cabinets, computers and boxes were loaded onto a blue truck al police headquarters on the main square-of Jericho, a town of 15.000 people where PLO chief Yasser Arafat Is expected to set up a base after Israel withdraws.