The Israeli army Friday tightened its control of Bethlehem, with soldiers and armed vehicles posted at nearly every entrance to the city and around the renowned Church of the Nativity, ending most Palestinian security control in the West Bank.
Reinforcements were sent into the biblical city, where military control had been eased for three months, a day after a Palestinian militant from Bethlehem set off a powerful blast aboard a Jerusalem bus, killing himself and 11 passengers.
By Friday morning, dozens of men were rounded up for questioning about the bombing and other attacks, army officials said.
Israel’s retaliation, however, was restrained compared with previous incursions in the West Bank.
Small groups of men openly stood in the stone streets of Bethlehem. Priests walked across Manger Square, near the shrine where Jesus is believed to have been born, in full view of gun-toting soldiers and a tank. A few shop owners, selling bread and sundries, cracked open their doors.
At noon, men at one end of the square could be seen removing their shoes and entering the local mosque to pray.
Still, Bethlehem was a virtual jail Friday with no traffic, no school and no work for the thousands of Palestinian residents struggling to make ends meet.
“He messed up things for us,” construction worker Samir Kana said about the 22-year-old suicide bomber, Nael Abu Hilail. “I was working and things were more relaxed. … Now I can’t leave.”
At the Church of the Nativity, troops were positioned to prevent gunmen from seeking refuge at the compound and repeating a situation that touched off a monthlong siege in April.
Bomber wasn’t ours, city says
Mayor Hanna Nasser said the incursion was wrongheaded punishment for a city that had little to do with the deadly attack.
The bomber, linked to the Islamic group Hamas, had lived in a village south of Hebron until April. He and his family had been renting a home–which Israeli troops blew up Friday morning–and he had few ties to Bethlehem, the mayor said.
“This incursion is a farce. It’s ridiculous. One tank in the square. A few jeeps racing around. … Bethlehem doesn’t deserve this,” Nasser said with exasperation at his home. “Being in Bethlehem now is not based on any intelligence information.”
The military shutdown was ordered hours after the bus bombing by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who met with top defense and intelligence officials to devise a response to the suicide attack.
Israel officials said since the easing of security under a plan with the Palestinian Authority, militants had again flocked to the city.
The incursion Friday left Israeli troops in control of most major West Bank cities except for Jericho.
Sharon told reporters that Israel would show no mercy to Palestinian attackers.
“Anyone who harms Israel, a little or a lot, will have his hand chopped off,” the prime minister said.
He added that the Palestinian Authority had “failed miserably” in its responsibility to prevent attacks.
Army officials said Friday that they had been given a “free hand to go after the terrorist structure” and “would be there until the job is done.”
Sharon is talking tough just days away from a crucial political challenge for leadership of the Likud Party in a primary election against Benjamin Netanyahu, a former prime minister. The latest polls of Likud members, published Friday in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, show Sharon ahead of Netanyahu by 18 percentage points.
Netanyahu, now foreign minister in a newly formed government, has been making pointed attacks on Sharon’s ability to provide security after two years of Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Nasser said the shutdown order was politically motivated and aimed at calming Israeli nerves.
Mayor: Just stoking anger
Among Palestinians, Nasser said, Sharon was stoking resentment among people desperate for work and a return to normal life. Charges that militants had returned to Bethlehem were unfounded, he added.
“Seventy percent of the economy depends on tourism, and not one tourist is booked for the Christmas season here,” Nasser said. “Believe me, just to calm the Israelis, we’re sitting here in our homes.”
Elsewhere, Israeli troops battled with militants in Jenin, which has been under military control for a month. A UN employee from Britain was killed in the fighting.
The UN official was hit by gunfire in his office and bled to death before an ambulance could rush him to a nearby hospital, medical authorities said.
Palestinian hospital officials said Ian Hook, 50, died from two gunshot wounds to the abdomen.
Dr. Mohammad Abu Ghali, director at the hospital, said Hook was hit by so-called dum-dum bullets, which exploded on impact. The Israeli army has denied using such ammunition.
Ghali said X-rays from lab reports showed the bullets. Details from the Israeli army were scant, and officials said it was unclear whose bullets hit Hook, who was in charge of a rebuilding program.
Israeli officials initially said Hook was shot while sitting his office, but an army official later said the employee was hit as he stood outside the UN complex.
