BETHLEHEM, PALESTINE With attack helicopters providing cover, Israeli tanks and troops rolled into biblical Bethlehem from two directions early Friday, witnesses said, targeting refugee camps the Israelis believe harbor Palestinian militants. Four Palestinians were killed and 20 wounded, doctors said. One died when Israeli helicopters fired on the Deheishe refugee camp, and others were killed during an Israeli incursion into the Aida camp.
March 08, 2002
BETHLEHEM, PALESTINE With attack helicopters providing cover, Israeli tanks and troops rolled into biblical Bethlehem from two directions early Friday, witnesses said, targeting refugee camps the Israelis believe harbor Palestinian militants.
Four Palestinians were killed and 20 wounded, doctors said. One died when Israeli helicopters fired on the Deheishe refugee camp, and others were killed during an Israeli incursion into the Aida camp.
Two Israeli tanks moved into neighboring Beit Jalla, where Palestinian gunmen have been firing at a Jewish neighborhood across a valley. The neighborhood, called Gilo, was built in a disputed part of Jerusalem claimed by both sides.
The Israeli incursion into Bethlehem followed three days of air strikes against the Palestinian Authority headquarters complex, where Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has an office. Late Thursday, an Israeli F-16 warplane fired a missile at the compound, hitting a building already gutted by previous strikes.
Arafat has been confined to his headquarters in Ramallah, 12 miles away, for three months by Israeli forces. The Israeli military said the air strike was part of the military’s ”efforts to prevent terrorism.”
Palestinians said there were some casualties, but the wounded could not be removed to hospitals because of the gunfire. After midnight, Israeli helicopters fired machine guns from the air at Palestinian houses in the Aida refugee camp at the edge of Bethlehem, after gunmen there fired at an Israeli military outpost nearby,
Palestinians said. Israeli forces took control of several buildings at the entrance to the camp, they said. Then tanks and troops moved into the town from two sides, while other forces gathered at staging areas in two other locations.
In the first hours of the incursion, the Israeli troops did not approach Manger Square or the Church of the Nativity, built on the traditional site of the birthplace of Jesus. The military move followed a suicide bomb attack Saturday night in Jerusalem that killed 10 Israelis, carried out by a Palestinian from the Deheishe refugee camp at the southern edge of Bethlehem.
Last October, Israeli tanks and troops moved deep into Bethlehem, taking up positions about a mile from the church and remaining for 10 days.
