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By Saed Ayyad
BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli tanks
and troops stormed back into Bethlehem and shooting erupted on Saturday,
two weeks after the army lifted a siege of Palestinian militants trapped
inside its Nativity church, witnesses said.
Military sources confirmed Israeli "activity"
inside the West Bank city holy to Christians worldwide but gave no further
information for the time being.
The army has been sweeping into and out of
Palestinian-ruled towns in search of more "terror" suspects since it
formally wound up a West Bank offensive against what it called suicide
bomber networks earlier this month.
Palestinian witnesses said Israeli jeeps followed by
tanks and armored personnel carriers entered Bethlehem and fanned out
through the city of 40,000 people after nightfall.
They said shooting broke out and two explosions
shook the ancient part of the town as Israeli helicopter gunships
clattered overhead. No return fire from Palestinians was seen, they
said.
Witnesses said Israeli troops had announced a
curfew via loudspeakers and were ordering inhabitants to stay
inside.
Palestinian police said Israeli troops were
searching houses within 660 feet of Manger Square, site of the church
built over the presumed birthplace of Jesus.
BETHLEHEM GOVERNOR BLASTS INCURSION
"We will never be controlled by Israeli policy
and condemn this renewed incursion against Bethlehem, but we ask the
people of Bethlehem to be careful," the city's governor Muhammad al-Madani
told Reuters.
Israel reoccupied West Bank cities in a
five-week offensive with the stated aim of rooting out militants linked to
a spate of suicide bombings that killed scores of people in Israel.
The offensive was declared over when Israeli
troops lifted a siege of the Church of the Nativity and vacated Bethlehem
after 39 militants who took shelter inside the church agreed to go into
exile in Europe or to the Gaza Strip.
Earlier on Saturday, the army imposed a curfew
on the West Bank city of Tulkarm after a two-day raid in which one soldier
was killed, 11 other people were wounded and a 16-year-old Palestinian boy
wearing an explosives belt was arrested.
Israeli troops withdrew to the fringes of
Tulkarm after what the army called another sweep for suicide bombing
suspects but kept the city tightly encircled as part of its siege tactics
against a 20-month-old Palestinian uprising.
Military sources said troops went back in for a
short period later on Saturday to announce a curfew by loudspeaker and
would return at frequent intervals to ensure it was obeyed.
"This (curfew) is because of continued warnings
of terrorist attacks emanating from the city," one source told
Reuters.
Residents said they had been ordered to stay
indoors until the army apprehended four wanted Palestinians.
Eight Tulkarm Palestinians and two Israeli
soldiers were wounded in violence on Friday that claimed the soldier's
life at the start of the army operation.
An 11-year-old boy was shot and wounded as
tanks and armored vehicles withdrew at midday on Saturday under cover of
Israeli machinegun fire, Palestinian witnesses said.
The army said troops had detained four
Palestinians in Tulkarm and defused a bomb found in one house. Palestinian
sources in the city said Israeli forces had detained 25 people.
Israel said the offensive unleashed on March 29
resulted in the killing or capture of a large number of Palestinian
militants behind suicide bombings that have killed scores of Israelis. The
Israeli army battered West Bank cities and refugee camps and scores of
people, including civilians, died.
Palestinians have vowed to pursue their
uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which
has raged since talks on a Palestinian state stalled in 2000. Just a few
years before talks broke down, Palestinians had won self-rule over parts
of those same areas in interim peace deals.
But Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has
demanded an end to what he now terms "terrorist attacks" inside Israel,
saying they harm prospects for his people's independence.
AT GUNPOINT, TEENAGER LAYS BOMB BELT ON
GROUND
An army statement said troops in Tulkarm had
detained a Palestinian youth wearing a belt of explosives, along with the
driver of the taxi he had been traveling in and two other passengers. It
said the taxi was intercepted at a roadblock set up near the village of
Ya'bad in the northern West Bank.
The taxi driver said he and the other two
passengers were later freed. He said the teenager undid the belt on orders
from soldiers pointing guns at him and lay it on the ground before being
tied up, blindfolded and taken away.
Palestinians have carried out four suicide
attacks, killing five Israeli civilians, this week. In the latest attempt,
a Palestinian tried to crash a car bomb into a packed Tel Aviv night club
on Friday but was shot dead by a security guard.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, linked to
Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for that attack. It
followed an Israeli missile strike in a Nablus refugee camp which killed
an al-Aqsa commander, two fighters and a civilian.
In the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Palestinian
security sources said a 45-year-old woman and her 13-year-old daughter
were killed when Israeli tanks fired shells into a field near the Jewish
settlement of Netzarim.
An army spokesman said troops opened fire on
two "suspicious figures" approaching a fenced-off border zone abutting
Israel after warnings of possible "terrorist infiltrations" there.
Palestinian sources said the tank rounds
ignited wheatfields and the fire burned the bodies of the woman and
daughter before ambulances could reach them.
At least 1,370 Palestinians and 480 Israelis
have been killed since the Palestinian uprising erupted.
The United States, Russia, the European Union
and the United Nations called this month for an international conference
to seek a political settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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