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Arafat Rejects Exile - Fighters
Flee Into Bethlehem Church
By Mohammed Assadi
4-2-2


RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian gunmen were holed up in one of Christianity's holiest sites on Wednesday as Israel tightened its grip on West Bank cities.
 
Palestinians meanwhile angrily dismissed an Israeli offer of exile for their embattled leader Yasser Arafat, who remains at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, surrounded by Israeli forces.
 
A journalist at the scene said some 200 Palestinian militants, many with weapons, have taken refuge in Bethlehem's Church of Nativity, built over the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born.
 
"They have decided to take this church as a safe harbour," Marc Innaro, a journalist with Italian state broadcaster RAI, told Reuters.
 
He said the militants, many armed, had entered the church, on Tuesday afternoon. Israeli tanks were deployed outside but the situation was calm early on Wednesday morning, he said.
 
Innaro and five other journalists, mostly from Italy, were trapped in the church complex. He said the Italian embassy had been given permission to send armored vehicles to pick them up.
 
An army spokeswoman said dozens of Palestinian militants had forced their way inside and were shooting from the church. She said the army had brought in a representative to mediate.
 
Israelis and Palestinians had earlier traded charges about whether holy sites were being respected as clashes broke out between Palestinians and advancing Israeli troops.
 
ARAFAT SEEKS INTERVENTION
 
Arafat appealed on Tuesday for world intervention against Israeli "attacks" on Muslim and Christian shrines.
 
"Today in Bethlehem they (Israelis) surrounded the Church of the Nativity and they attacked many other churches and mosques," Arafat said in a telephone interview with al-Jazeera television, speaking from Ramallah.
 
The Israeli military drive, which began last Friday, fanned out to new areas of the West Bank on Tuesday despite mounting international calls for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to pull out his forces.
 
Israeli tanks rolled into Bethlehem before dawn on Tuesday. Witnesses reported clashes between Palestinians and Israeli troops near the Church of Nativity.
 
Israel says its military campaign in the West Bank is aimed at isolating Arafat and "uprooting terrorists" behind suicide attacks that have killed dozens of Israelis.
 
Israel, which has been hit by six bombings since the Jewish Passover holiday began last Wednesday, said it had repelled two further attacks on Tuesday evening.
 
In the northern Gaza Strip, the army said it thwarted a Palestinian's attempt to infiltrate and attack a Jewish settlement.
 
An army spokesman said a "terrorist" opened fire when soldiers tried to search him. Soldiers killed the man and two Israeli soldiers were slightly injured, he said.
 
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said a member of its group, Mohammed Saleh, was killed during "a heroic operation" in the northern Gaza strip.
 
In another incident in Baka al-Sharkiyeh, near the "Green Line" dividing Israel from the West Bank, a Palestinian wearing an explosive vest was killed, an army spokesman said.
 
Israel army radio said the Palestinian was shot and blew up after ignoring an order to stop at a checkpoint.
 
ONE-WAY TICKET
 
Sharon caused controversy on Tuesday, by saying Arafat could have a "one-way ticket" to exile.
 
"It has got to be a one-way ticket. He would not be able to return," Sharon said during a visit to a West Bank army base.
 
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Palestinian leader, who has sworn to "die a martyr" rather than bow to Israel, would never leave his homeland voluntarily.
 
Erekat said Sharon wanted to kill Arafat despite Israel's repeated assurances to the contrary.
 
Secretary of State Colin Powell dismissed the idea that Arafat should be expelled, saying the Palestinian president had an important role to play in the quest for Middle East peace.
 
Dovish Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, often at odds with the right-wing Sharon, said the government had no policy of expelling the Palestinian leader.
 
"The government decided against it. We are not going to impose upon him things that he will not agree to. We are not going to dismantle the Palestinian Authority. We are not going to occupy the West Bank again," he said.
 
President Bush said on Tuesday he hoped Palestinians could have "their own peaceful state" and vowed the United States would work to stop "terrorist activities" aimed at derailing peace efforts in the Middle East.
 
Palestinian forces surrendered to Israeli troops besieging the headquarters of West Bank security chief Jibril al-Rajoub on Tuesday after running out of food and ammunition.
 
The Israeli army said 180 people were taken for questioning.
 
Rajoub, who was evacuated earlier, denied Israeli charges that there were militants wanted by Israel sheltering there.
 
A small contingent of tanks also entered Jenin in the northern West Bank, apparently as a prelude to a full incursion as more tanks massed outside, witnesses said.
 
Witnesses said the latest casualties included an 80-year-old Palestinian man who was shot dead outside his house in Bethlehem and a woman and her son also killed there.
 
Majdi Benoura, 30, a Palestinian cameraman working for Qatar's al-Jazeera station, was wounded in the neck as he was filming from the roof of the city's Star Hotel, colleagues said.
 
The Russian Orthodox Church sent an angry message to Israel demanding an immediate withdrawal from a Russian church building it said Israeli troops had occupied in the Bethlehem battles.
 
OIL AT SIX-MONTH HIGH
 
European Union president Spain summoned the Israeli ambassador to Madrid to demand that Israel quit Palestinian cities, in line with a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted on Saturday, and restore Arafat's freedom of movement.
 
Spain later called a rare emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers for Wednesday to discuss the Middle East crisis. A spokesman said the meeting would be in Brussels or Luxembourg.
 
Oil prices hit a six-month high on fears that unrest could spread in the Middle East, which holds two-thirds of world oil reserves, though no support emerged for Iraq's proposal to use an oil embargo to put pressure on Israel's supporters.
 
Raising the prospect of a second front opening in addition to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas attacked Israeli positions in an area near the border and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
 
Israel said it had sent warplanes into action in response, It gave no details but witnesses said Israeli warplanes fired at least four missiles from warplanes at the edges of the nearby Lebanese border town of Kfar Shouba.
 
At least 1,142 Palestinians and 403 Israelis have been killed since a Palestinian revolt began in September 2000., West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian gunmen were holed up in one of Christianity's holiest sites on Wednesday as Israel tightened its grip on West Bank cities.
 
Palestinians meanwhile angrily dismissed an Israeli offer of exile for their embattled leader Yasser Arafat, who remains at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, surrounded by Israeli forces.
 
A journalist at the scene said some 200 Palestinian militants, many with weapons, have taken refuge in Bethlehem's Church of Nativity, built over the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born.
 
"They have decided to take this church as a safe harbour," Marc Innaro, a journalist with Italian state broadcaster RAI, told Reuters.
 
He said the militants, many armed, had entered the church, on Tuesday afternoon. Israeli tanks were deployed outside but the situation was calm early on Wednesday morning, he said.
 
Innaro and five other journalists, mostly from Italy, were trapped in the church complex. He said the Italian embassy had been given permission to send armored vehicles to pick them up.
 
An army spokeswoman said dozens of Palestinian militants had forced their way inside and were shooting from the church. She said the army had brought in a representative to mediate.
 
Israelis and Palestinians had earlier traded charges about whether holy sites were being respected as clashes broke out between Palestinians and advancing Israeli troops.
 
ARAFAT SEEKS INTERVENTION
 
Arafat appealed on Tuesday for world intervention against Israeli "attacks" on Muslim and Christian shrines.
 
"Today in Bethlehem they (Israelis) surrounded the Church of the Nativity and they attacked many other churches and mosques," Arafat said in a telephone interview with al-Jazeera television, speaking from Ramallah.
 
The Israeli military drive, which began last Friday, fanned out to new areas of the West Bank on Tuesday despite mounting international calls for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to pull out his forces.
 
Israeli tanks rolled into Bethlehem before dawn on Tuesday. Witnesses reported clashes between Palestinians and Israeli troops near the Church of Nativity.
 
Israel says its military campaign in the West Bank is aimed at isolating Arafat and "uprooting terrorists" behind suicide attacks that have killed dozens of Israelis.
 
Israel, which has been hit by six bombings since the Jewish Passover holiday began last Wednesday, said it had repelled two further attacks on Tuesday evening.
 
In the northern Gaza Strip, the army said it thwarted a Palestinian's attempt to infiltrate and attack a Jewish settlement.
 
An army spokesman said a "terrorist" opened fire when soldiers tried to search him. Soldiers killed the man and two Israeli soldiers were slightly injured, he said.
 
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said a member of its group, Mohammed Saleh, was killed during "a heroic operation" in the northern Gaza strip.
 
In another incident in Baka al-Sharkiyeh, near the "Green Line" dividing Israel from the West Bank, a Palestinian wearing an explosive vest was killed, an army spokesman said.
 
Israel army radio said the Palestinian was shot and blew up after ignoring an order to stop at a checkpoint.
 
ONE-WAY TICKET
 
Sharon caused controversy on Tuesday, by saying Arafat could have a "one-way ticket" to exile.
 
"It has got to be a one-way ticket. He would not be able to return," Sharon said during a visit to a West Bank army base.
 
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Palestinian leader, who has sworn to "die a martyr" rather than bow to Israel, would never leave his homeland voluntarily.
 
Erekat said Sharon wanted to kill Arafat despite Israel's repeated assurances to the contrary.
 
Secretary of State Colin Powell dismissed the idea that Arafat should be expelled, saying the Palestinian president had an important role to play in the quest for Middle East peace.
 
Dovish Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, often at odds with the right-wing Sharon, said the government had no policy of expelling the Palestinian leader.
 
"The government decided against it. We are not going to impose upon him things that he will not agree to. We are not going to dismantle the Palestinian Authority. We are not going to occupy the West Bank again," he said.
 
President Bush said on Tuesday he hoped Palestinians could have "their own peaceful state" and vowed the United States would work to stop "terrorist activities" aimed at derailing peace efforts in the Middle East.
 
Palestinian forces surrendered to Israeli troops besieging the headquarters of West Bank security chief Jibril al-Rajoub on Tuesday after running out of food and ammunition.
 
The Israeli army said 180 people were taken for questioning.
 
Rajoub, who was evacuated earlier, denied Israeli charges that there were militants wanted by Israel sheltering there.
 
A small contingent of tanks also entered Jenin in the northern West Bank, apparently as a prelude to a full incursion as more tanks massed outside, witnesses said.
 
Witnesses said the latest casualties included an 80-year-old Palestinian man who was shot dead outside his house in Bethlehem and a woman and her son also killed there.
 
Majdi Benoura, 30, a Palestinian cameraman working for Qatar's al-Jazeera station, was wounded in the neck as he was filming from the roof of the city's Star Hotel, colleagues said.
 
The Russian Orthodox Church sent an angry message to Israel demanding an immediate withdrawal from a Russian church building it said Israeli troops had occupied in the Bethlehem battles.
 
OIL AT SIX-MONTH HIGH
 
European Union president Spain summoned the Israeli ambassador to Madrid to demand that Israel quit Palestinian cities, in line with a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted on Saturday, and restore Arafat's freedom of movement.
 
Spain later called a rare emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers for Wednesday to discuss the Middle East crisis. A spokesman said the meeting would be in Brussels or Luxembourg.
 
Oil prices hit a six-month high on fears that unrest could spread in the Middle East, which holds two-thirds of world oil reserves, though no support emerged for Iraq's proposal to use an oil embargo to put pressure on Israel's supporters.
 
Raising the prospect of a second front opening in addition to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas attacked Israeli positions in an area near the border and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
 
Israel said it had sent warplanes into action in response, It gave no details but witnesses said Israeli warplanes fired at least four missiles from warplanes at the edges of the nearby Lebanese border town of Kfar Shouba.
 
At least 1,142 Palestinians and 403 Israelis have been killed since a Palestinian revolt began in September 2000.


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