BETHLEHEM, West Bank, 14 December 2002 — Israeli troops stormed a Palestinian house and shot dead an activist near Bethlehem yesterday. Israeli military sources said soldiers killed an armed Palestinian in an exchange of fire in Thabra village, south of Bethlehem in the West Bank, when he tried to evade capture. But Palestinian witnesses said troops stormed a house where Jadallah Shoka, 32, an Islamic Jihad member, was hiding and killed him in a barrage of gunfire before arresting three other men inside. They said the Israelis never came under fire.
Elsewhere, three Palestinians were seriously injured when a bomb apparently exploded accidentally in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
The violence, which has continued despite Washington’s appeals for calm while it seeks Arab support for a possible war on Iraq, followed a day of bloodletting on Thursday in which seven Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed. Five of the Palestinian dead were unarmed laborers killed by an Israeli tank shell while trying to climb a security fence around the Gaza Strip to sneak into Israel to find work. Some 30,000 Hamas supporters packed a sports stadium in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, where they cheered a parade of fighters. “Qassam will take revenge,” speakers shouted over loudspeakers, referring to Hamas’ military wing, the Izz El-Deen Al-Qassam brigades.
The rally, one of the biggest Hamas has held since the start in September 2000 of a Palestinian uprising for statehood, marked the 15th anniversary of the organization’s founding.
Relatives of the five unarmed Gazans killed Thursday said the men came from one extended family and included two brothers. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Jonathan Peled called the killings a “tragic event” but said “they were five suspicious persons in a prohibited area”.
Israeli Army blockades imposed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the past two years of fighting have crippled the Palestinian economy and cut off thousands of Palestinian workers from their jobs in the Jewish state. Israel says the closure is aimed at preventing attacks on its citizens. Palestinians call it collective punishment.
The renewed West Bank tension dashed hopes a curfew would be lifted in Bethlehem for Christians to celebrate Christmas. The annual festivities in Bethlehem, which has been reoccupied like most of the West Bank for months, have been severely dampened in recent years.
