VARIOUS: ISRAELI FORCES CONTINUE OPERATIONS IN BETHLEHEM/ MORE BODIES UNCOVERED IN JENIN/ FUNERALS TAKE PLACE FOR PALESTINIANS SHOT DEAD NEAR JEWISH SETTLEMENT.

Record ID: 400596

  • Title: VARIOUS: ISRAELI FORCES CONTINUE OPERATIONS IN BETHLEHEM/ MORE BODIES UNCOVERED IN JENIN/ FUNERALS TAKE PLACE FOR PALESTINIANS SHOT DEAD NEAR JEWISH SETTLEMENT.
  • Date: 20th April 2002
  • Summary: (W5) BETHLEHEM, WEST BANK (APRIL 20, 2002) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. LV: WIDE TOP VIEW OF TOWN, CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY 0.06 2. GV: CHURCH 0.08 3. GV: ISRAELI SOLDIER ON TANK 0.11 4. GV/MV: ISRAELI SOLDIERS MOVING IN TO SEARCH BUILDING/ ISRAELI SOLDIER IN DOORWAY/ ISRAELI SOLDIERS LOOKING AT MAP/ ISRAELI SOLDIER BY WALL/ ISRAELI SOLD
  • Embargoed: 5th May 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: JENIN AND BETHLEHEM, WEST BANK/GAZA
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Reuters ID: LVAAMG7YJ8163NAD9JF6ZVRCCLH4
  • Story Text: The siege of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity
    continues, with Israel insisting its troops will stay near the
    church until the surrender of Palestinian gunmen holed up
    inside. Meantime, Palestinians have marched in the funerals of
    two gunmen who were killed near the settlement of Netzarim.



    Israeli troops on Saturday (April 20) patrolled the
    streets of Bethlehem, conducting house searches in their
    continuing hunt for weapons and gunmen they believe are
    responsible for attacks on Israeli citizens in Israel.

    At the Church of the Nativity, the standoff continued
    between troops and Palestinians sheltering inside.

    More than than 200 people, including Palestinian gunmen
    and foreign clergy, have been holed up inside one of
    Christianity's holiest sites since tanks rolled into the city
    on April 2.

    Israel says the army will stay near the church until the
    gunmen surrender.

    The stand off has meant that Bethlehem is under an almost
    permanent curfew.

    The Jenin refugee camp was the scene of the fiercest
    fighting in Israel's West Bank offensive, unleashed on March
    29 after suicide bombings killed scores of Israelis.

    Following the Israeli army's withdrawal from Jenin and
    the camp there on Friday rescue workers had the task of
    pulling bodies from the rubble in the refugee camp.

    A Jenin hospital official said the body count in the
    refugee camp had risen to 39, but added that it could climb to
    between 200 and 400. Israel says about 70 Palestinians, mostly
    fighters, had died. Twenty-three Israeli troops were killed in
    Jenin.

    The United States drafted a U.N. resolution to send a
    fact-finding team to the camp, after first threatening to veto
    an Arab-drafted measure calling for a formal U.N.

    investigation of "massacres" in the Jenin camp.

    Israel pledged on Saturday (April 20) to cooperate with a
    U.N. mission to probe its assault on the Jenin refugee camp.

    But it has denied carrying out a massacre in the camp it
    described as a hornets' nest of terrorists and a breeding
    ground for suicide bombers.

    Palestinians have marched in the funerals of two gunmen
    who were killed on Friday (April 19) near the settlement of
    Netzarim. The Islamic Jihad group said it had sent the gunmen
    to avenge massacres by the enemy in Jenin and elsewhere in the
    West Bank.

    Violence flared in the Gaza Strip again on Friday, where
    six Palestinians, including a suicide bomber, were reported
    killed, although the Gaza Strip had been relatively quiet
    during Israel's West Bank offensive into Palestinian-ruled
    cities.

    cr/pw/cr/pj
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