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BETHLEHEM, West Bank -- As church bells pealed in joy, Israeli troops drove out of Manger Square in a convoy of 11 jeeps Thursday and the town of Jesus' birth was handed to Palestinian control just four days before Christmas.
Bethlehem residents switched on the lights, red, green and yellow, of a tall Christmas tree in the square, packed with thousands of cheering Palestinians, when the Israel troops drove out of a fenced-in police station at nightfall.
The jubilant crowd set off firecrackers and women ululated to mark an end to 28 years of Israeli occupation. A few shots were fired in the air.
About a kilometer away, a convoy of Palestinian police jeeps drove into the Israeli military headquarters, and officers raised their Kalashnikov assault rifles triumphantly in the air.
Hundreds of Palestinians thronged the compound to get a closer glimpse at the arriving police. Passing motorists honked their horns.
The West Bank's army commander, General Gabi Ofir, one of the last Israelis pulling out, waved at the crowd from a jeep. "You notice there are hundreds of people around us right now. I feel safe enough together with everybody ... The atmosphere is one of celebration," he said.
Bethlehem is the sixth West Bank town to come under Palestinian rule as part of the Israel-Palestine Liberation Organization autonomy agreement.
Earlier Thursday, a lone Israeli legislator held a protest vigil outside the military government.
"I'm shouting out in pain because they are going to hand over Bethlehem, the city of David, the city of Rachel, to the Palestinians," said legislator Hanan Porath, a leader of the Jewish settlement movement.
Right-wing protests have been subdued in the wake of the Nov. 4 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist who said he wanted to wreck the Israel-PLO peace agreements.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was to visit Bethlehem for the first time on Sunday, Christmas Eve, and deliver a speech from the roof of the Church of the Nativity to what was expected to be a crowd of thousands in Manger Square.
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