Church bells pealed in celebration on Wednesday after Israel handed over the West Bank city of Bethlehem to Palestinian police under a security pact to advance a fragile new US-backed peace plan. Armed Palestinian police, their patrol car sirens blaring, fanned out and took up positions in the city revered by Christians worldwide as the birthplace of Jesus, as well as in the adjacent towns of Beit Jala and Beit Sahour. But happiness about Israel’s security handover was tempered by resigned awareness of the fact that Israeli troops continued to surround and even tighten restrictions on movement on roads in and out of the town on Jerusalem’s southern outskirts. ‘‘It is a ceremonial withdrawal, not a real one,’’ Bethlehem Mayor Hanna Nasser said of the deal sealed at a meeting on Tuesday between Israeli PM Ariel Sharon and Palestinian PM Mahmoud Abbas. Bethlehem was battered by fierce fighting and full Israeli reoccupation at the peak of a Palestinian uprising for statehood last year. The upheaval included an Army siege of militants holed up inside the Church of the Nativity. The accord requires Palestinian police to fill the security gap created by the Israeli pullback by cracking down if needed on militants seeking to attack Israelis. Israel said if they did not do so, it would be free to sweep back into Bethlehem. But Israeli officials said pull-outs from more volatile West Bank cities reoccupied in 2002 after a spate of suicide bombings, and a reopening of main roads between them, would not happen unless Palestinian authorities began disarming militants. The Israeli Army said its forces in Gaza came under fire on Wednesday but sustained no casualties. By noon, a spokesman for the Palestinian security forces said they had fully deployed through the densely populated coastal strip. (Reuters)
