Following Israel's pullback from parts of the Gaza Strip on Sunday and Monday, this was the first return of policing control to Palestinians in the West Bank, under a new American-backed peace plan. But apart from the wailing sirens and honking horns of the excited officers, today's change was less stirring, as similar withdrawals may prove to be elsewhere in the West Bank.

Israel maintained its military cordon around the town, continuing to barricade Palestinians inside in what it calls an essential defense against terrorist attacks. Israel is also building a fence around Bethlehem, some of whose boundaries are already defined by ditches five feet deep and coils of barbed wire.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian prime minister, said Tuesday that the withdrawal from Bethlehem would be followed by an Israeli departure from "the rest of the cities and towns and Palestinian refugee camps," but no timetable has been announced.

In return for ceding security, Israel is demanding that the Palestinian officers — recommissioned here for the first time since the Israelis returned in their latest operation, last November — act to break up militant groups and seize their weapons. 

This 33-month conflict has left an incalculable number of scars on both sides. But standing here with his son, Mr. Thaljieh had a very particular wound in mind as he watched the proud, smiling officers parade past the Church of the Nativity, which faces the square. 

Leaving the church on Oct. 20, 2001, Michael's cousin, a 16-year-old altar boy named Johnny Thaljieh, carried him part way across Manger Square, set him down on the cobblestones and was shot through the heart by what Palestinians said was an Israeli sniper. Pope John Paul II mourned the death, and it remains one of the most bitterly recalled killings in Bethlehem of the conflict. 

Israel said at the time that Palestinians had been shooting from the area, and that someone might have been hit in the crossfire.

Michael, then 4, screamed all that night, and has not spoken since, his father said. "I brought him here to see the police," he said. "To see that it would be safe." 

Mr. Thaljieh, 39, said he would no longer have to worry about his children's safety on their way to school. Although he was trying to reassure his son, he said he did not really think the developments today meant much.

"The Israeli Army is just around the corner," he said. "This is a joke. The closures are still on. The checkpoints are all over the place."

In the Gaza Strip, Israel removed most checkpoints it had placed along the main north-south road, permitting Palestinians to travel more freely than they had in more than two years within Gaza, which is fenced off along its 25-mile length. Here, Palestinians said they were no more free than they were on Tuesday to cross Bethlehem's boundaries, to go just north to Jerusalem or even to Palestinian areas of the West Bank. 

Some Palestinians smiled and waved at the police, but for the most part the officers' exuberance contrasted with shrugs from civilians in this town of 35,000. The mayor, Hanna Nasser, dismissed the Israeli move as "a ceremonial withdrawal."

After seizing Bethlehem and the rest of the West Bank during the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel handed control of most of it to the Palestinian Authority in 1994, under the Oslo peace plan. During this conflict, it was taken back and then relinquished by the Israelis several times. In recent months, in fact, the Israeli military had reduced its presence here mostly to quick in-and-out raids to make arrests.

Of much greater concern to Mr. Nasser, Mr. Thaljieh and most other residents is the difficulty that they have leaving the town, and that tourists have coming. The tourist industry has all but collapsed. Olive-wood nativity scenes have stacked up, unsold, in the shops.

"I don't believe any of this stuff," said one man, referring to the new peace process as he hawked a fistful of rosaries outside the Church of the Nativity, believed by Christians to mark the birthplace of Jesus Christ. "The only solution is to go back to the 1967 borders." He gave his name only as "Muslims."

Israeli officials say that they have taken steps to enable tourists to visit more easily, and that they hope to further ease restrictions as Palestinian security forces act against violence.

In meeting with Israeli officials on Sunday, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, criticized the barrier fence that Israel is building against West Bank Palestinians, saying its path appeared to incorporate a good deal of West Bank land and could create a border, officials said. But Prime Minister Ariel Sharon defended the fence as a necessary security measure.

Despite a suspension of attacks declared by the three main Palestinian factions, scattered violence was reported around the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinians fired three antitank missiles into the central square of an Israeli settlement in Gaza, the army said. Two people were evacuated with slight shrapnel wounds, the army said.

[A local head of the hard-line Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, linked to the Fatah movement of Yasir Arafat, was killed in an exchange of fire with Israeli troops overnight in the town of Qalqiliya in the northern West Bank, a Palestinian security official told Agence France-Presse early Thursday. Muhammad Shawa, 31, was killed while soldiers backed by armored cars were trying to arrest him, the official said. An Israeli military official said Mr. Shawa had been hit after be opened fire on the troops and attempted to flee.]

Palestinian security officers here said they had been forbidden by Israel to carry weapons or wear their uniforms since the Israeli troops returned in November. 

Today, in the central police station, new recruits and old hands eagerly awaited the scheduled 4 p.m. handover. Outside, a 22-year-old officer stood with his semiautomatic rifle newly returned to his hands. Like others, he had been forbidden by his commander to speak with reporters. But, identifying himself only as Jihad, 22, he said: "I'm proud to be back — whether they want me to say anything or not. I'm proud to be back."

At the appointed hour, the men crammed into trucks and sedans and, honking their horns, created a small traffic jam as they rushed to their posts.