Israeli troops withdrew on Wednesday from the West Bank town of Bethlehem, leaving its security control to the Palestinians. It is a deal both sides hope will advance the peace plan formally launched in early June.

The Bethlehem handover followed Tuesday's summit between Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and his Israeli counterpart Ariel Sharon in Jerusalem, the first time they have chosen to appear publicly together on their own. Both declared their mutual respect and hopes for peace during the meeting. Committees are also expected to be re-established to work out details for handling the thorny issues the two sides have.

On Sunday and Monday, Israeli forces pulled out of much of the Gaza Strip and reopened its north-south highway to Palestinian traffic for the first time since a Palestinian uprising erupted in September 2000. Earlier on the same day, the three main Palestinian militant factions - Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah announced a conditional three-month halt to attacks on Israelis. The temporary truce was soon challenged by scattered violence around the West Bank and Gaza which left two people dead.

These developments indicate a positive approach. Palestine and Israel viewed the conditions mature for further progress. The violence of the last exhausting 33 months - the suicide bombings of Israeli buses and the smashing of Palestinian homes - has left more than 2,400 Palestinians and 800 Israelis dead, as well as leaving an incalculable number of scars on both sides.

The notion of an eye for an eye can do nothing but further hatred and impede international efforts to revive the peace process in the region.

The independence of Palestine is key to a stable Middle East. But peace can not be realized so long as the Palestinians are deprived of their livelihood and dignity.

The latest episode is the beginning of the sensitive political process of implementing the roadmap peace plan which charts the way to a comprehensive and lasting Arab-Israeli peace and a Palestinian state co-existing alongside Israel by 2005.

Israeli withdrawals should take place elsewhere in the West Bank, as resolving the Middle East crisis depends first and foremost on Israel pulling out its settlers from Palestinian territory and ending its occupation which began in 1967.

(China Daily July 4, 2003)