TULKARM, West Bank, 22 March 2005 — Israel handed over security control of the West Bank city of Tulkarm to the Palestinians yesterday, a Palestinian security official said.

“The Israelis have transferred security responsibility for Tulkarm to the Palestinian Authority,” Said Abu Fasha, the Palestinian commander of Tulkarm, told Reuters.

The Israeli Army confirmed that control of the city had been handed over to Palestinian police.

Palestinians took to the streets in celebration, and dozens of armed Palestinian police appeared in the city to begin patrolling the streets, witnesses said.

Tulkarm, bordering on Israel and separated from it by a tall concrete barrier, was the second of five cities Israel has pledged to quit after a cease-fire deal reached last month by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Egypt.

Israeli troops had reoccupied these areas during the 4-1/2 year-old Palestinian uprising. The first of the five, Jericho, was handed back to Palestinian security on Wednesday.

The handover of Tulkarm was delayed by Israeli concern over control of three neighboring villages from where a bomber reached Tel Aviv and killed five people on Feb. 25.

Israeli and Palestinian commanders reached a compromise, leaving Israeli forces in control of the villages, while armed Palestinian police will patrol Tulkarm itself and an outlying road.

Meanwhile, Israel vowed yesterday to expand its largest Jewish settlements in the West Bank despite Palestinian fury.

A high-ranking official said Israel would “continue to build homes, administrative offices and industrial areas” in Maale Adumim, Gush Etzion and Ariel, less than two weeks after a report slammed the authorities for helping to build unauthorized settler outposts. His comments came a day after the Defense Ministry approved the construction of over 3,500 new homes in Maale Adumim, which has 28,000 residents.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the decision “sabotages all efforts seeking to get the peace process back on track”.

Maaleh Adumim, five kilometers east of Jerusalem, is the most populous Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Gush Etzion lies south of Jerusalem and the town of Ariel in the northern West Bank.

“These areas will never be transferred to the Palestinian Authority,” the official from Prime Minister Sharon’s office told AFP. “We’re not talking about rogue outposts, but perfectly legal settlements.”

He denied that the move would further carve up a future Palestinian state, saying it would “not deprive the Palestinians of territorial continuity... thanks to a (bypass) road being built linking Bethlehem to Ramallah.”

Israel is also due to revive a proposal to link Maale Adumim to Jewish settlements in annexed east Jerusalem, as the government presses ahead with plans to withdraw completely from the Gaza Strip by the end of August.

The move prompted furious criticism from the Palestinians. “Jerusalem is in real danger. If 3,500 homes are added to Maale Adumim and it is surrounded by the apartheid wall as planned, it will threaten the fate of all Jerusalem,” said Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei, of the West Bank separation barrier.

“What happened to the two-state vision and how can we have peace while settlements and the wall continue to be built?” Erekat asked, in comments addressed to the Middle East quartet and US President George Bush.

The quartet, made up of diplomats from the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and United States, drafted the road map peace plan which seeks to freeze all settlement activity and create an independent Palestinian state.

A US diplomatic source said Washington expected Israel to respect its road map commitments to halt settlement activity and dismantle outposts, but he refused to comment on the Maale Adumim issue.

Earlier this month, Bush called on Israel to freeze settlement activity after a report commissioned by the premier accused the authorities of methodically helping build scores of outposts in the West Bank.