Combined Reports


BETHLEHEM, West Bank -- Hundreds of pictures of Yasser Arafat are strung across Manger Square and a two-story color drawing of the PLO chief hangs from the square's shopping arcade as Bethlehem prepares for the Israeli troop's withdrawal from the city.


Israel has said it would withdraw its troops by midnight Thursday from the town where tradition says Jesus was born, setting the stage for the first Christmas celebrations under Palestinian rule.


However, Israeli army Colonel Moshe Elad, who serves as a liaison officer with Palestinian police, suggested Tuesday that the pullback might take place sooner.


Israel has said the only precondition for the pullout was the completion of a bypass road for Jewish settlers around Bethlehem.


The army said the bypass, built in just two months, would be formally opened by Israel's Housing Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer on Wednesday. Israeli security sources said from midnight on Tuesday the existing main road through Bethlehem would be closed to Israelis.


The new 11-kilometer road links the Gush Etzion block of Jewish settlements to Jerusalem, bypassing both central Bethlehem and the roadside refugee camps from which angry Palestinians stoned settlers at the start of the Intifada (Palestinian uprising).


Israeli Tourism Minister Uzi Baram and Bethlehem's Palestinian mayor, Elias Freij, were to meet Tuesday to discuss logistical problems during the Christmas festivities, such as traffic jams.


However, Freij angrily canceled the meeting after Baram's advance team arrived at City Hall with a bomb-sniffing dog and insisted municipal employees pass through a metal detector.


"Their behavior was inhumane and humiliating,'' Freij said.


Thousands of visitors are expected to converge on Bethlehem, a town of 50,000 south of Jerusalem, on Christmas Eve. Arafat, a Moslem, will take center stage in the celebrations and address the crowd in Manger Square.


Ihmaid said representatives from 40 countries had been invited to attend the celebrations.


The head of the Roman Catholic church in the Holy Land said Wednesday Christmas joy was returning to the birthplace of Jesus as Israel completes the handover.


Patriarch Michel Sabbah welcomed the decision of PLO head Arafat to attend Midnight Mass in Bethlehem as a message of reconciliation and respect to other religions.


Mayor Freij plead for investment in his town. "The whole Christian world is neglecting the city of Bethlehem, which is the spiritual capital of Christianity," he said. )