The Greenville News · 1 July 2003
CP-2003-027
Israel offers Bethlehem to Palestinians
Both sides optimistic about truce despite shooting in West Bank
By Alexandra Zavis, The Associated Press
Shown from the top. The whole column — 3.1 times taller than it is wide — is in the enlargement.
Transcribed from the clipping
JERUSALEM — Israel agreed to return the West Bank town of Bethlehem to Palestinian control after its pullback Monday from the Gaza Strip, crucial steps that advance a U.S.-backed “road map” to Palestinian statehood and raise hopes that 33 months of violence may be nearing an end.
The two sides’ prime ministers also set a meeting to plan their next moves, as bulldozers tore down Israeli checkpoints and traffic flowed freely in Gaza for the first time in months. Palestinian police took control of the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun on the heels of the departing Israeli troops.
The developments followed declarations of a temporary halt to attacks by three main Palestinian groups, but there were still trouble spots. The first full day of the truce was marred by a Palestinian shooting that killed a Bulgarian construction worker on an Israeli road project near the West Bank town of Yabed.
Renegade members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, loosely linked to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, claimed responsibility. However, Palestinian Information Minister Nabil Amr said it was not clear Fatah was involved. “It was an individual attack that should not affect the truce declaration,” he said.
Despite the violence, Israeli and Palestinian officials remained upbeat about prospects for further advances under the “road map” peace plan launched by President Bush at a June 4 summit. The plan leads through three stages to a Palestinian state in 2005.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declined to criticize his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, after the shootings, noting that security responsibility was handed over to the Palestinian Authority in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun only on Monday morning.
Cite this clipping
"Israel offers Bethlehem to Palestinians," The Greenville News, 1 July 2003. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2003-027. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2003-027
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Last updated 2 November 2026
This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1724 to 2023. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.
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