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AP. 5 April 2002. Religious Trapped in Nativity Church. [The content of the article clearly contradicts its title.] BETHLEHEM -- A Palestinian priest counted up the damage Friday at his church compound: 35 doors broken, 55 windows shattered and a crack in 19th-century stained glass. A day earlier, four dozen Israeli soldiers had stormed buildings of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church, locking the Rev. Mitri Raheb in his office for two hours and threatening him at gunpoint as they searched offices, a guest house and a conference center, the clergyman said. The army had no comment. Bethlehem's religious leaders have been caught in the middle of Israel's hunt for gunmen and militants in the city, now in its fourth day. At the ancient Church of the Nativity, about 400 yards from Raheb's church, about 40 Franciscan brothers, four nuns and some 30 Orthodox and Armenian monks remained trapped among some 240 armed Palestinians who refused to surrender to Israeli soldiers waiting outside. On Friday, four priests left the besieged basilica that sits above the site where tradition holds that Jesus' was born, said the Rev. Gianfranco Pinto Ostune of the Franciscan press office in Rome. Two left for health reasons, he said, and another had to leave to travel to Italy. Ostune said the clergy inside the church want to stay put to safeguard one of Christianity's holiest shrines. "We are custodians of these places," he said. "There are stones there that were trod on by Christ." The Vatican's missionary news service, FIDES, said an envoy of the Holy See in Israel negotiated the departure of the four priests. [N.B.] FIDES also released a statement by the Custodians of the Holy Sites that expressed concern that the Israelis were mistakenly considering the monks inside the church to be hostages. The statement said there were fears that the Israelis might view the monks to be hostages in an attempt to legitimize an attack on the church, "which is not acceptable on any pretext." [N.B.] The statement said, "The monks are not hostages. They are in their home and in their place, out of faith and vocation, and out of obedience to the orders of their superiors." Israeli forces prevented reporters from getting close to the fourth-century stone church. The standoff began Tuesday, when the fighters, who had been engaged in heavy gunbattles with advancing Israeli troops for hours, dashed a few dangerous steps from the Palace Hotel to the church. Soldiers have called out on loudspeakers for the gunmen to surrender but none has done so. The army has said gunmen fired from inside the Church of the Nativity and other holy sites, a claim the Palestinians have denied. On Thursday, gunmen and others inside the church said Israeli soldiers blew open a back door leading into a small courtyard of the church and fired inside, wounding three people. The minister-general of the Franciscans, the Rev. Giacomo Bini, told reporters in Rome on Friday that Israeli soldiers did blow open a door and fired inside the church courtyard but did not enter. "They (Israeli soldiers) did destroy the door the same way the Palestinians destroyed a door trying to get in," he said. Around the city, a few people ventured cautiously into the streets as word spread that a military curfew would be lifted for two hours. People stared at their cars, flattened by tanks and left twisted like crunched soda cans along curbs. Bullets left car windows split and cracked. Shopkeepers cleaned up damaged stores along streets full of rubble and bent-over lamp posts. Tank treads gouged stone roads that were built above old asphalt roads for Millennium celebrations. "We have only a couple of hours to find food," said Souad Kasi, 55. "We need milk and bread, but this time is not enough for bakeries to provide all the people with bread." She raced with her 11-year-old daughter Abir to find an open shop. Others hurried to hospitals to claim the bodies of dead relatives and quickly bury them. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews Yahoo has currently suspended the list --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
