BETHLEHEM, West Bank, 2 April 2004 — When a gunbattle ended after an Israeli Army raid on a Bethlehem mental hospital yesterday, a schizophrenic Palestinian patient stepped out on a ledge and threatened to jump. “We brought him down. We talked to him slowly, calmly and gently,” a doctor said. “The situation now is that all the patients feel fear... They are in shock.”
It was a jarring introduction to the Middle East conflict for Bethlehem’s Hospital for Psychological and Mental Illness, which had been spared during numerous Israeli incursions into the West Bank city during a 3-1/2-year-old Palestinian uprising.
Witnesses said Israeli soldiers battled for an hour against Palestinian gunmen holed up in the hospital, which lies about two km from the famed Manger Square in the town revered as Jesus’ birthplace.
The army said militants had been meeting in the compound what it called to plan attacks against Israelis. Troops surrounded the hospital before dawn and called on the gunmen to surrender, but the army said militants opened fire from inside. Twelve men, mostly militants from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades that make up Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction, were arrested, witnesses said.
Despite witness accounts, Moussa Abu Hamid, director of Palestinian hospitals, denied gunmen had taken refuge in the hospital. He said six nurses were among those detained by Israel. No casualties were reported.
At the hospital, a sprawling complex lined with palm trees and well-manicured shrubs, nurses tried to comfort patients suffering from illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression. “What I hear is that it affected them a lot. They are agitated,” said Adel Eissa, administrative director of the hospital. “There is no justification for this. But who will listen? They (the Israelis) say it is self-defense.”
One schizophrenic patient, asked how he felt about what happened, could say little more than “good morning” and complain he could not get juice because of the destruction. Another trembled as he spoke about an Israeli Army jeep that came close to his building, but said he was not afraid.
Israeli fire left gaping holes in walls in the administrative section of the hospital and chunks of plaster and glass shards littered the corridors. Doctors said they were still confused about what had happened, saying soldiers prevented them from leaving their sleeping quarters to reach patients during the raid. “The soldiers surrounded our building and we couldn’t get out,” said one doctor, who declined to give his name. He now fears that the condition of some patients could deteriorate.
Asked if there were militants in the hospital, he said he did not know. “We didn’t see anybody,” he said. “Maybe there was somebody who was wanted, but they didn’t need to destroy the hospital.”
Meanwhile, Palestinian premier Ahmed Qorei urged senior US officials in Gaza yesterday to ensure Israel’s planned pullout from Gaza does not deflect from a permanent settlement of the Middle East conflict. Qorei and senior colleagues met with the three US diplomats — Assistant Secretary of State William Burns, Deputy national Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and National Security Council Middle East affairs head Elliot Abrams — in the West Bank town ahead of their talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Qorei told reporters he sought guarantees from the Americans that Sharon’s plan to evacuate most if not all of the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip would not stymie attempts for a comprehensive settlement.
