Eight killed as Israeli troops move back into Bethlehem
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Your support makes all the difference.The Israeli army went back into Bethlehem yesterday and reimposed a curfew it had lifted before Christmas. In operations across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Israeli troops earlier shot dead seven Palestinian fighters and a teenage bystander. Five soldiers were wounded in gun battles, one seriously.
The fiercest fighting was in the Qabatiya refugee camp, near Jenin. Hamsa Abu Roub, an Islamic Jihad commander, opened fire on soldiers who had come to arrest him. A neighbour said the Israelis threw grenades, then shot him dead.
A military spokesman said the soldiers called on non-combatants inside the building to surrender. After his wife and children had done so, Mr Abu Roub, 40, came out and started shooting. Army engineers returned later and demolished the house.
The spokesman said Mr Roub, an explosives expert, was behind a series of attacks in northern Israel, including a suicide bombing that killed a policeman in September. The army alleged that he was planning to send another bomber on a suicide mission at the time of his death.
Security forces also shot dead a leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in Tulkarm; a Hamas activist and an unarmed passer-by, aged 19, in Ramallah; and two wanted Tanzim fighters in Nablus. Sentries shot dead two armed men as they tried to infiltrate the Netzarim settlement in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians said a man aged 65 died in Ramem, near Tulkarm, after Israeli troops fired concussion grenades near him during a raid. But the army said there had been no firing of weapons in the area.
The flurry of Israeli army operations drew vows of revenge from Palestinian militant groups, aggravating hostilities which the US wants kept in check to help it to cultivate Arab support for a war against Iraq.
In Bethlehem, troops fired tear gas at Palestinians shopping near the town centre, ordering them by loudspeakers to return home, and resumed patrols in front of the ancient Church of the Nativity, which Christians revere as Jesus' birthplace.
Soldiers arrested at least one man, identified as a Palestinian intelligence officer, and had sporadic clashes with stone-throwers.
The army moved into Bethlehem a month ago after a Palestinian suicide bomber from the town blew up a bus in Jerusalem, killing 11 Israelis. But after an appeal from Pope John Paul II, Israeli forces pulled back to the outskirts of Bethlehem on Tuesday to allow Christmas observances.
At least 1,747 Palestinians and 671 Israelis have been killed since Palestinians launched an uprising in September 2000 after negotiations on Palestinian statehood hit an impasse. Israel revealed yesterday that it had arrested more than 1,800 suspected Palestinian fighters during the past four months alone.
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