BETHLEHEM, West Bank, 23 November — Israeli troops and armored vehicles took over the West Bank city of Bethlehem yesterday in a major offensive after a bus bombing on Thursday in occupied Jerusalem killed 11 people. The army also raided Jenin and Tubas.
Soldiers began arresting Palestinians and sealed off the Church of the Nativity. The army arrested the father and brother of the man suspected of having blown himself up on the Jerusalem bus on Thursday, Palestinian police said.
Troops arrived at the home of Nael Abu Hlayel, identified by Israeli security officials as the most likely suspect in the blast, in the village of Al-Khader, adjacent to Bethlehem. His father and his youngest brother Nazmi, 18, were arrested by soldiers who then blew up the house, police said.
“We are currently controlling the whole city,” a local army commander said, vowing that troops would stay “as long as we have to hit the terror infrastructure in Bethlehem”. Soldiers conducted house-to-house searches. The army said it was searching for about 30 Palestinians in the city, some of them suspected of involvement in the bus bombing. Troops rounded up about 20 suspects in Bethlehem and 16 people elsewhere in the West Bank, most of them members of the Hamas which claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attack. Army radio said one was a girl accused of planning a bombing.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told reporters during a visit to a lookout near Bethlehem: “I have ordered the security forces to take all necessary steps in order to hurt those who try to harm us.”
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat called the Israeli raid “a military escalation” which violated international agreements.
“Israel wants to destroy peace not only with the Palestinians but with the whole of the Middle East and with all Arab countries,” he said.
“Israel violates every international treaties and international laws ... but we will persist in our steadfastness,” he added.
Top Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rudeina said, “The reoccupation of Bethlehem, Jenin and Al-Qarada shows that Israel does not honor the agreements it has signed with the Palestinians. We condemn this serious escalation of violence that could impact the whole region and lead to even more violence,” he said.
Troops also pursued the crackdown in the West Bank city of Jenin where Israeli armor backed by helicopters surrounded a refugee camp. A British UN aid worker was killed in the West Bank city of Jenin. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the UN worker was killed by Israeli gunfire.
“He was killed by the Israeli Army which shows the little consideration the army has for life,” Erekat said. The “murder of a British employee, chief of the reconstruction project in the Jenin refugee camp, constitutes a new Israeli crime,” Erekat added.
Rene Aquarone, spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Geneva, confirmed the death of an international staff member in Jenin. His UNRWA identity card named him as a Briton, Iain John Hook. The British Foreign Office also said the victim was British, and aged 54.
The head of Jenin hospital, Dr. Mohammed Abu Ghali, said Hook was “hit by two Israeli M-16 bullets in the abdomen.”
He said Israel had been barring all ambulances from freely circulating inside the camp. “They could not reach him on time and he arrived dead at the hospital,” Ghali said.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed concern at the Israeli Army’s refusal to let an ambulance get to the British UN official. “The full circumstances surrounding the incident have not yet been established, but the secretary-general is greatly disturbed by the fact that the Israeli defense forces refused immediate access for an ambulance which had been summoned by UNWRA to take Mr. Hook to hospital,” said Annan in a statement read by a spokesman.
Also in Jenin, Israeli gunfire killed a 10-year-old boy, Palestinian doctors said.
In Gaza, Palestinian security sources said a police officer was killed by a tank shell near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim. The army said he had been in a group of armed Palestinians attempting to infiltrate the settlement. Palestinians in Gaza also killed an Israeli soldier early yesterday, the army said.
Meanwhile, new opinion polls of Likud members published in newspapers yesterday showed Sharon is maintaining a commanding lead of between 16 to 18 percentage points over Netanyahu. Whoever wins next Thursday’s leadership race is expected to be the next premier.
