Israel returned the Gaza Strip's main highway to Palestinian control this morning to end a 30-month blockade and advance a fragile US-backed peace plan.
Palestinian police regained control of the road across the Mediterranean territory hours after Israeli troops pulled out of northern Gaza, starting a disengagement buoyed by Palestinian militants' decision to suspend attacks on Israel.
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A Palestinian security man puts a flag out at a security post afterIsraeli troops pulled back from GazaPhoto: Reuters
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Some 50 Israeli armoured vehicles left the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun after US presidential adviser Ms Condoleezza Rice met both sides to press them to begin implementing the peace "road map".
Israel later announced it will withdraw forcesfrom the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Wednesday.
The peace plan envisages the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005 in Gaza and the West Bank with security for Israel, which captured both territories in the 1967 Middle East war.
Israel transferred to Palestinian control the main road from Beit Hanoun except for one army checkpoint outside Kfar Darom, a Jewish settlement. Two bypass tracks were opened to let Palestinian motorists pass without hindrance.
Israel has also agreed to withdraw forces from the town of Bethlehem as a test case for a wider pullback in the West Bank. Israeli and Palestinian security officials were expected to meet today to discuss a Bethlehem pull-out.
Israel reacted sceptically when Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings, announced a three-month truce with a list of demands - but not preconditions - attached. Israel suspects militants will exploit a truce to regroup and attack again.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad said their truce depended on "total cessation of all forms of Zionist aggression", including Israeli military raids, closures around Palestinian cities, a siege around Mr Arafat's presidential compound and "assassinations".