Israel Lowers Its Flag, Relinquishes Jericho to the PLO : Mideast: Palestinians celebrate withdrawal of troops after 27 years of occupation.

JERICHO, West Bank —  Israel ended its 27 years of occupation of this West Bank town Friday and handed the area over to the Palestine Liberation Organization, the first step in what is meant to become a broader withdrawal from the region as it becomes self-governing.

Israeli soldiers somberly lowered and folded their country’s blue-and-white flag with its Star of David from building after building--the police station, government offices, military headquarters--where it had flown so assertively for so long.

To the cheers of hundreds of townspeople, Palestinian police hoisted in its place the Palestinian flag--stripes of black, white and green, intersected by a red triangle--and it waved briskly in the desert wind.

People sang “Biladi, Biladi,” the Palestinian anthem, and danced in the streets. Jericho quickly took on a festive air it has rarely known for a generation. The center of the ancient town, believed to be the world’s oldest inhabited city, was filled with the celebrating crowds.

“This is not just any other day,” said Israeli Brig. Gen. Gadi Zohar, military governor of the occupied portions of the West Bank. “We hope, both us and the Palestinians, that it is the beginning of a new era, an era of peace.”

Although beset with delays over the last week, the transfer of power from Israel to the PLO went smoothly here Friday when 500 more men from the Palestine Liberation Army, reconstituted as the Palestine National Security Force, arrived from Jordan as the vanguard of the new Palestinian administration.

Shortly after dawn, Israeli authorities turned over the police station to the Palestinians to begin the transition; by 10 a.m., Israeli officials had handed over control of all 20 government departments; at 11 a.m., Israeli troops forced the remaining 50 Jewish settlers to leave an old synagogue in the city; by 2 p.m., the last Israeli soldiers had climbed into their patrol vehicles and left town.

Joint Israeli-Palestinian security patrols, flying both Israeli and Palestinian flags and the orange banner of the Israel-PLO liaison committee, soon began operation--with dozens of local cars following in a sort of peace parade in and around the town.

“The moment was moving,” said Maj. Gen. Ilan Biran, the Israeli commander of West Bank forces, after greeting the incoming Palestinians at the Allenby Bridge over the Jordan River. “We wished each other good luck. . . . We will see in the coming days if things are fully realized. The promises are many, but reality is a bit more difficult.”

Jewish settlers protested the transition, attempting to sit in at Jericho’s 1,400-year-old Peace Upon Israel Synagogue. But Israeli soldiers forced them out. Biran later barred all Israelis from the town on security grounds. He promised to allow their return next week so they can pray at the synagogue.

“To our embarrassment, they took down the Israeli flag (at the synagogue), and I am afraid they will fly a Palestinian flag there,” said Uri Ariel, secretary of the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. “I felt something choking in my throat at the sight of Palestinian policemen carrying Kalashnikov rifles at the synagogue. This is a difficult day.”

But Biran said he believed that Jewish settlers around Jericho and in the Jordan Valley will come to accept the changes as part of the peace process, although much would depend on how the autonomy agreement is implemented.

“Hitches are expected, mostly from misunderstanding,” Biran said. “They must be prevented, brought down to a minimum.”

Jericho’s peaceful transition from Israeli to Palestinian control was tragically marred when a 9-year-old boy was killed and a young girl wounded by stray bullets fired by Palestinians during the celebration.

With the additional transfer of much of the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian police--about 1,500 altogether--were deployed Friday in more than half the area that will constitute the region of Palestinian autonomy. Israel captured both territories--the West Bank from Jordan and Gaza from Egypt--in the 1967 Middle East War.

“I have mixed feelings, to be honest with you,” said Saeb Erekat, one of PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat’s appointees to the Palestinian Authority, the council that will run Jericho and the Gaza Strip prior to autumn elections. “On the one hand, it really is a good feeling to see that the Palestinian flag is flying in the skies of Jericho.

“But at the same time you have to keep in mind what we are beginning--the road ahead is really a difficult one. There are enormous challenges facing us. It is time to plant rather than to harvest. . . . What happened here is a step of just one centimeter in a journey that will be a hundred kilometers long.”

Pausing for a personal reflection, Erekat added: “It is a very nice feeling to see the soldiers leave the building where I was jailed. Jericho is Palestinian now.”

Freedom had come to Jericho shortly after dawn, and the town’s 15,000 residents awoke to find the police station, long a symbol of the Israeli occupation, with a giant Palestinian flag draped over the side of the stone building. Palestinian police, in khaki uniforms and green berets, were smiling down from its watchtower and roof.

“We woke up to freedom,” said Ibrahim Aker, 33, a pharmacist. “It was a wonderful feeling. For people my age, who have only known the occupation, this is something we have been waiting for our entire lives. And after all the delays, all the negotiations, all the problems, it is hard to believe that, finally, Palestinians will be the masters of their home. It is not independence, but that is coming.”

Nuzha Aboulhawa, 47, a social worker among Palestinian refugees, was celebrating too but was more cautious.

“The Israelis wanted to get out of Gaza, and the price the PLO demanded and got was Jericho,” she said. “Don’t read more into the agreement than that. I hope and pray we will get all of the West Bank back, but there is no timetable for that. Nor is there agreement on the return of our people from refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, on the future of Jerusalem and on the removal of these settlers from our midst. Appreciate what we have gained, but understand that it is far from everything.”